Oral Answers to Questions

DEFENCE

The Secretary of State was asked—

Yorkshire Regiment

Hugh Bayley: If he will make a statement on the role of the Yorkshire Regiment.

Adam Ingram: The Yorkshire Regiment is an infantry regiment consisting of three regular battalions and one Territorial Army battalion. The 1st and 2nd Battalions fulfil the light infantry role, and the 3rd Battalion fulfils the armoured infantry role. The role of the Territorial Army battalion is to provide a contingent component to support the three regular battalions and to act as a civilian contingency reaction force for 15 Brigade. The battalion was formed on 6 June 2006 with formation parades in York, Catterick, Warminster and the Balkans.

Hugh Bayley: Will my right hon. Friend pass on the congratulations and best wishes of the Government and the House to the newly formed Yorkshire Regiment, and especially to the soldiers of the 2nd Battalion currently serving in Kosovo and the 1st Battalion soldiers, who will soon be deployed to Iraq? The Yorkshire Regiment is the only county regiment in the British Army. Does he agree that it is important to build links between the regiment and the people of Yorkshire, and for local government to do its bit by transferring the freedom of the city, which was awarded to predecessor regiments, to the new Yorkshire Regiment?

Adam Ingram: I am only too happy to pass on those warm thoughts from my hon. Friend. He raises an important point about links between the local community and the newly formed regiment, and the need to ensure that those links have the same strength and depth as links with the former regiments. He asked whether I would support that, and I would. He asked whether I would support the granting of the freedom of the city to the new regiment. The answer is yes. I am conscious of the fact that HMS York, which has done such wonderful work recently in Lebanon, has the freedom of the city. I am sure that those two complementary parts of the armed forces would work well together.

Robert Goodwill: The Minister has already mentioned the Territorial Army battalion. A number of soldiers from the Scarborough TA centre have served with distinction in a number of theatres. Sadly, the staffing has already been cut from six to three, with an NCO in charge. We are told that further cuts will mean that there will be no full-time staff. Can the Minister reassure me that the writing is not on the wall for the Scarborough TA centre?

Adam Ingram: I cannot off the top of my head. I will write to the hon. Gentleman. TA rebalancing involves a complex picture. It would be wrong for me to try to remember every town and every element of it. I can tell him that we have put additional full-time resources into serving the Territorial Army for the prime purpose of making sure that there is depth to what it seeks to do in individual communities. I will write to him about Scarborough. I am sorry that I do not have a detailed answer today.

Philip Davies: Of course we all wish the men and women of the Yorkshire Regiment well, but does the Minister understand that many people in Yorkshire mourn the loss of the regiments that the Yorkshire Regiment replaced? Will he assure the House that the Government will not dismantle any more regimental history and tradition?

Adam Ingram: The hon. Gentleman may wish to look at the history of regimental change over the decades and perhaps even the centuries. The one thing that the British Army has always been able to do is try to predict its future needs and what its shape should be, and organise things accordingly. He should also be aware that the recommendations for the new infantry structure and the whole Army structure were promulgated by the chiefs of staff. They did not come from any other drive. They were based on a number of factors, not least of which was the important change in Northern Ireland. The future Army structure and infantry structure will mean that we have more of the Regular Army available for operational requirements and duty than has applied hitherto. That must be to the benefit of our serving soldiers. There are other positive aspects. If the hon. Gentleman looks back at the statements made in the House, he may get a better understanding of the matter.

Defence Industrial Strategy

Sarah McCarthy-Fry: What contribution the defence industrial strategy will make to supporting British armed forces and securing British jobs.

Adam Ingram: The aim of the defence industrial strategy is to ensure that the Ministry of Defence and industry work together to provide the best possible capability for our armed forces. It seeks to provide greater visibility of the Department's forward planning so that industry's planning can be better informed, and to identify the national industrial capabilities that we need to sustain on-shore. The strategy therefore offers the best basis for providing our forces with the equipment that they need and at the same time allowing our national defence industry to sustain significant levels of employment and core capabilities over time.

Sarah McCarthy-Fry: I met the commander of Portsmouth naval base and the managing director of Fleet Support Ltd this morning. We discussed the unique one-stop-shop service for ships at Portsmouth naval base, where concept, design, build, launch, support, upgrade and eventual disposal are offered. That is made possible by a partnership between industry and the Royal Navy. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that is the only such service in the UK and that Portsmouth naval base, with its consolidation and co-location of industry and the Royal Navy, is a unique example of best practice in delivering the objectives of the defence industrial strategy?

Adam Ingram: It would be easy to say yes to that, but I would not want to give an impression that we do not have to examine all that we are delivering through work on the maritime infrastructure project. Of course, where we have excellence in companies—my hon. Friend mentioned one in her constituency, which has unquestionably given us tremendous service over the years—it is important that we consider how we can best ensure that we have the right capacity to meet our needs. The work to identify that will take some time. I have no doubt at all that those with particular excellence in this field will play a strong card, and my hon. Friend is a strong card on behalf of both her constituency and the company.

Mike Hancock: Like the hon. Member for Portsmouth, North (Sarah McCarthy-Fry), I met the base commander and the company concerned last week, when they raised the same important issue. Are the Government prepared to ensure the stability of all three naval yards—Devonport, Portsmouth and Rosyth—so that there is a fair weighting of maintenance work? Will the Government also ensure that they rightly recognise the loyalty of the work force by giving them continuous support for their actions over the past 100 years or more?

Adam Ingram: I would be the first to congratulate the work force on all the work that they do. However, we must realise that change is under way, which is why we are working with all companies at all naval bases to determine the best configuration to meet the needs of the country not in the past century, but in the decades ahead. I do not think that that will be easy. We must realise that the number of ships that require maintenance now and the capacity in those bases will mean that there is change. We must be realistic, not romantic, which means that we need to look to the future, rather than dwelling on the past.

David Borrow: Will my right hon. Friend comment on developments on the joint strike fighter, which is a crucial project for our defence industry and our military? Will he comment on the progress that is being made on the transfer of intellectual property with the Americans and on the prospects for manufacturing facilities being located in the UK—and more particularly in Lancashire?

Adam Ingram: I know that my hon. Friend had a benefit last week that I did not have, because he visited the Farnborough air show. I was due to visit it, but unfortunately the events in Lebanon demanded my time. I would have liked to be there because I would have seen tremendous excellence from the British aerospace sector across the board, as he did. We are continuing to work very hard to deliver the joint intent of President Bush and my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on the UK's operational sovereignty for the joint strike fighter. The matter is at the highest level of consideration. We have made good progress and have set a framework for further discussions over the next few months in even greater detail. We believe that these are important steps towards the signing of the memorandum of understanding towards the end of the year. There is still work to be done, although great progress has been made. As long as my hon. Friend continues to represent his constituency—both at air shows and in the House—I am sure that all that good work will be properly recognised.

Robert Key: Will the Minister ensure that the defence industrial strategy pays proper attention to the defence nuclear industry in terms of both science, technology and engineering, and, of course, the read-across to the civilian nuclear industry, because we will otherwise lose tens of thousands of highly skilled people? Their jobs would not be replaced in this country, so we would lose their expertise to foreign countries.

Adam Ingram: That is a critical part of the key manufacturing, scientific and technological strengths of this country, and too many people who are opposed to the nuclear industry, whether in the civil or defence sector, seem to forget that. Such a thing would rip the heart out of large parts of our science and technology base. We must ensure that we give those who wish to take up such aspects of a university and graduate career, or those who work in the technical side, a long-term future, because that is good for the economy and also the defence of the country.

Linda Gilroy: I welcome my right hon. Friend's response to the hon. Member for Salisbury (Robert Key). Is he satisfied that industry is playing its full role in consolidating the submarine industry in a way that will allow those key skills to be kept together?

Adam Ingram: I know that my hon. Friend keeps a close eye on this subject, and I do not know how best to interpret the question. She knows that a major procurement programme is under way in terms of the Astute submarines, and the basing of that has been determined. There will be a long-term use of that particular capability. As we look towards future capabilities, we have set out what we intend to do about the replacement for Trident, if she was directing her question at that.  [Interruption.] The hon. Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis) says that she was. I am giving a longer answer because there are bigger aspects to consider. There is more than just one element to the debate, which is why I mentioned the Astute programme. In terms of how we look forward, that will all be part of the national debate. I have no doubt that my hon. Friend will make a major contribution to that debate.

Afghanistan

Henry Bellingham: What his latest assessment is of the security situation in Afghanistan.

Des Browne: The security situation across Afghanistan as a whole is stable, but fragile in places, including Helmand and the rest of the south of Afghanistan, where the rule of law has yet to be established fully.

Henry Bellingham: With the Prime Minister advocating a NATO force of 20,000 for south Lebanon, and with real uncertainty over the US draw-down from Operation Enduring Freedom, is the Secretary of State concerned that we may end up with too few troops in Afghanistan, without the right equipment and without enough lift capability? What discussions has he had with Secretary Rumsfeld, and what is his assessment of the chances of other countries joining the international effort in Afghanistan?

Des Browne: As the hon. Gentleman knows, 37 other countries are involved in Afghanistan. One would be hard-pressed to find countries that are not. I have spoken to Secretary Rumsfeld about continued support from the United States and the transfer of authority at the end of this month. The United States will continue to be a member of NATO and to provide significant support. Indeed, in the south it will continue to provide a bridge in relation to the air support that is necessary. Having spoken recently to General Richards, who will be responsible for that, I am satisfied that there are sufficient forces and assets to maintain the operations that we are setting out to achieve.

Ann Cryer: I wonder whether my right hon. Friend heard the "Today" programme a week or two ago, when the Taliban spokesman excused the bombing of schools by saying, "Oh well, actually we don't bomb schools. We only bomb girls' schools." Is any special protection being afforded to such schools?

Des Browne: I welcome my hon. Friend back to the House after her recent illness and hope that she keeps well.
	I did indeed hear that interview. The House should celebrate the fact that of the 5 million additional children who are now in school in Afghanistan, one third are girls, whereas no girls were educated at all under the Taliban regime.
	In relation to Helmand province in particular, my hon. Friend may be aware that in the village of Nawzad, where our troops are providing a degree of security, the Taliban had not only closed the school, but taken it over and were using it as mortar base plate location. Delivering security is exactly the sort of activity that we have been conducting in those communities which will allow those schools to reopen. We will provide protection for the teachers and encourage the children, including the girls, to attend school.

James Arbuthnot: The Secretary of State announced today that he will be sending two extra Chinook helicopters to Afghanistan. That is unreservedly to be welcomed. I congratulate him on making an announcement that brings forward things that will cost extra money. Does he accept, however, that that needs to be far from the end of the story? An extra two helicopters may well not be enough, given the importance and difficulty of the essential job that we are carrying out in Afghanistan.

Des Browne: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his support, which I welcome. He will know that that was part of a statement that I made; I have no doubt that we will get to the other parts later in these questions. He will know, too, that those two Chinook helicopters were requested by commanders on the ground and staffed up to me by the chiefs of staff who approved that request, and I acceded to it. When I made the announcement about additional deployments in Afghanistan, I gave a figure to the House that included the anticipated cost of the additional helicopter support. The right hon. Gentleman will be reassured that in the same statement I said that we would keep helicopter and air support provision under review, and we will do just that.

Gwyneth Dunwoody: My right hon. Friend knows that the role of the RAF will be absolutely fundamental in Afghanistan. Is he therefore absolutely satisfied that there is sufficient security for our air personnel, even with the assistance of the RAF regiment, to protect them from constant incoming attack?

Des Browne: My hon. Friend will be pleased to know that the RAF is providing significant support in Afghanistan, not only for our troops in the south but for other troops deployed in that part, particularly from the Kandahar air base where our Harriers are based. We have made the decision to continue to base the RAF there for some time into the future. She ought to recollect that not long after I was appointed to this job I made an announcement that we were deploying additional troops to the Kandahar air base to provide full security. Consequently, having made that decision and having deployed those troops from the RAF regiment, I am satisfied that security is sufficient for the RAF.

Michael Ancram: Why are the few helicopters that we have in Afghanistan based in Kandahar where our troops are not, rather than in Helmand where they are?

Des Browne: The reason our helicopters are based in Kandahar, which is a comparatively short distance from our troops in Helmand—

Michael Ancram: indicated dissent.

Des Browne: The right hon. and learned Gentleman shakes his head. I have the advantage of having been there, seen the distance and indeed travelled in a helicopter from Kandahar to where we are based. As my right hon. Friend the Minister of State said, the helicopters are there because we believe that at present we can provide the level of support and in particular the security better at Kandahar than at Camp Bastion. At some time in the future we may well be able to provide that security at Camp Bastion, but that will be a matter for commanders on the ground and not for me.

Jim Devine: What progress has been made in training Afghanistan security forces in peacekeeping measures?

Des Browne: My hon. Friend will be pleased to hear that we have managed to train 28,000 soldiers and in excess of 30,000 police officers in Afghanistan—but we are not finished there. Not only are we training Afghanistan forces, but in Helmand province we are working with them very closely. In fact, we have deployed trainers and mentors who are working, living and eating with Afghan Kandaks and, as the commanding officer on the ground says, are prepared to die with them if necessary. That is having a significant effect on their ability to deliver security for their own people.

Bob Russell: The whole House appreciates the excellent work that the British forces are doing in Afghanistan. As far as Helmand province is concerned, Brigadier Ed Butler, commander of the 16 Air Assault Brigade, is reported in the Colchester  Evening Gazette only today as saying that morale is exceptionally high. The mission in Afghanistan is of enormous importance and UK troops are performing a vital role, but how do the Government reconcile the comments reported in Saturday's edition of  The Guardian made by General David Richards, head of the NATO international security assistance force, who says that Afghanistan is "close to anarchy", with their own assurances that
	"neither the Taliban, nor the range of illegally armed groups currently pose a threat to the long-term stability of Afghanistan"?

Des Browne: The hon. Gentleman disadvantages himself by relying on a press report of what General Richards said. In fact, when General Richards used the word "anarchy", he used it specifically in relation to the lack of coherence in the network of international Government and non-governmental organisations operating in Afghanistan. He was not referring to the security situation or to the rule of law in the country. Lest it be thought that, by explaining the context of that reference, I am being complacent in any sense, I add that he went on to say that a number of measures were now in place that would tackle the problem of coherence in the Afghan and international community's response, including President Karzai's creation of a policy action group to co-ordinate and drive through key elements of Afghanistan's development. He was not talking about security at all when he used the word "anarchy".

Roberta Blackman-Woods: Will my right hon. Friend tell the House how the new contingent of British troops being sent to Afghanistan and their support staff will contribute to economic and social development, particularly in Helmand?

Des Browne: My hon. Friend asks an important question, because a significant proportion of the additional troops whom we deployed to Afghanistan consists of 320 engineers. That is recognition, based on observations made in the early weeks and months in Afghanistan, of the fact that in order to deliver reconstruction in the context of improved governance, which will be the future security of the people in Helmand province, we must be able to find a method of doing so in a fragile security situation. That is exactly what the deployment of those engineers is designed to do. Through that deployment, we will take advantage of the progress that Commander Ed Butler and his troops made in the early months in Afghanistan to build on that security by delivering progress to communities across the south of Afghanistan, particularly in Helmand province.

Gerald Howarth: As the House is aware, my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition and the shadow Defence Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Woodspring (Dr. Fox), are in Afghanistan, and I thank the Secretary of State for helping to facilitate their visit. As my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition has said, we support the mission and, above all, the work undertaken by Her Majesty's armed forces, but Parliament has a duty to hold the Government to account for their policy in Afghanistan.
	The hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell) referred to NATO's commander in Afghanistan, Lieutenant-General David Richards, who, on Friday night, said that western forces were "short of equipment" and were "running out of time". He said, too, that there was a lack of unity between the different agencies responsible for implementing the reconstruction work, which means that the situation, as the Secretary of State acknowledged, "is close to anarchy". How on earth does that square with the written answer that the Secretary of State gave my hon. Friend the Member for Woodspring last week, in which he said:
	"Neither the Taliban, nor the range of illegally armed groups, currently pose a threat to the long-term stability of Afghanistan"?—[ Official Report, 18 July 2006; Vol. 449, c. 342W.]
	Surely there is an element of complacency in that, which ought not to be there?

Des Browne: There is no complacency at all. I know that the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) is with the hon. Member for Woodspring in Afghanistan, and I was pleased to be able to assist in ensuring that they could have that experience and could communicate to our troops in Afghanistan their support and the support of other Members of the House. Before they left, they confirmed to me that they would be pleased to take that message to our troops in Afghanistan.
	In answering the question as I did, I was doing exactly what I, and my predecessor, have done on a number of occasions in relation to Afghanistan: I drew a distinction between the strategic threat that the Taliban could pose to the Government of Afghanistan, and the localised threat that I have, on a number of occasions at this Dispatch Box, candidly admitted that they pose. I do not believe—nor does General Richards—that the Taliban pose a strategic threat to the Government of Afghanistan. That is what my answer to that question was designed to impart. If the hon. Gentleman checks  Hansard, he will see I have used that phraseology in that very context on a number of occasions. Indeed, it has been used by myself and by the previous Secretary of State for Defence since March this year, in answer to very similar questions.
	Let me just deal with General Richards's view: I had the benefit of meeting him on Friday morning, and I do not have to rely on the way in which he was inaccurately reported in newspapers. Let me quote what General Richards—

Mr. Speaker: Order.

Gerald Howarth: I am sure that the House is grateful to the Secretary of State for not reading out the entire speech that General Richards made, but he made it at a public gathering at the Royal United Services Institute and it has been widely reported. Either all the reporters have got it wrong, or there is something wrong with the right hon. Gentleman's recollection.
	I want to ask the Secretary of State something else about Afghanistan, which is extremely important. Increasing numbers of British troops are being deployed to Afghanistan and the United Kingdom has another role to play there. We have been charged specifically with the lead role in helping the Afghan Government to rid the country of drug production. Last week the Minister for the Middle East said what the strategy should be. Perhaps I am quoting inaccurately and the Secretary of State can tell us if the newspapers have got it wrong, but the Minister said:
	"Go for the fat cats, very wealthy farmers, the movers and shakers of the drugs trade".
	General Sir Mike Jackson, Britain's most senior soldier, said:
	"To physically eradicate"
	opium poppies
	"before all the conditions are right seems to me to be counter-productive"—

Mr. Speaker: Order. There are Back Benchers who are entitled to be called as well.

Des Browne: "The mission in Afghanistan offers the clearest example of how NATO is successfully transforming...Much progress has been made, and the strength, diverse capabilities, and flexibility inherent in multinational operations is being proved."
	Those were the words that General Richards used to conclude his contribution to the RUSI conference. They are entirely contradictory to the way in which his speech has been reported. Those are his own words, not three or four of them taken out of context.
	With regard to drugs, there is no inherent contradiction between our focus on reconstruction and our ambition to rid Afghanistan of narcotics. There is no long-term sustainability for Afghanistan if its economy is substantially based on narcotics. At this stage we are not asking our soldiers to be drugs police officers. That is a matter for the Afghan police. However, we have accepted a responsibility to build up the capacity of Afghanistan to deal with the issue. We are doing that. We are putting significant investment into it, and by the delivery of security, we are creating a set of circumstances where that can be done. All this is perfectly consistent.

Nuclear Deterrent

Mark Hunter: What estimate he has made of the costs of replacing the UK's strategic nuclear deterrent.

Des Browne: In preparation for decisions later this year on any replacement for Trident, officials are working on possible options and costs. Ministers will consider the outcome of that work later in the year. It is therefore premature to speculate on the possible costs of any replacement.

Mark Hunter: Given that the combined capital expenditure and through-life running costs of a Trident replacement could ultimately exceed some £40 billion, according to some experts, can the Minister say specifically where those funds will come from? Can he further assure the House that the funding for the UK's conventional armed forces, which are already overstretched in many instances, will not be adversely affected as a consequence?

Des Browne: I have no doubt that in the context of the debate that will take place, the hon. Gentleman will have an opportunity to make clear, individually and on behalf of his party, when we understand what his party's position is on the matter, where they stand. Clearly, the hon. Gentleman, like his colleagues, will have to live with the financial consequences of any decision that we make, just as we on the Government side, and no doubt the official Opposition, will be prepared to do, but he can be reassured that the timetable set for the decision is such that the decisions about the costs can be incorporated in the comprehensive spending review considerations, and decisions about costs will be made once we work out which option we want to adopt and what the costs of that option are.

James McGovern: The development of our nuclear deterrent took place more than 50 years ago and involved the work of many armed forces personnel, not least the veterans who took part in the Christmas Island tests. Will my right hon. Friend reconsider the matter of compensation for that ever-decreasing band of surviving veterans and their families, including my constituent, Mr. Tom Malone, before it is too late to help any of them?

Mr. Speaker: Order. Perhaps the Minister can write to the hon. Gentleman. The question is on another matter.

Mark Pritchard: When we have the debate on the strategic nuclear deterrent, could it include a discussion of the ballistic missile defence shield that America, South Korea and Japan have, but which Britain does not have? The Americans are looking for a third site. Could we have a debate about it possibly being located in the United Kingdom if they are prepared to pay for it?

Des Browne: Those are two separate issues. I understand why the hon. Gentleman wants to relate them, but to conflate them in that way will merely confuse the debate. He can rest assured that when there are any considerations in relation to any of these matters, we will be transparent and report them to the House.

Chris Bryant: One of the ways in which we have managed relatively to keep down the cost of our nuclear deterrence is by our co-operation with the United States of America. If we want to do the same in future, would it not make sense for us to establish strong connections at every level with all our nuclear allies, including the French?

Des Browne: My hon. Friend will need to wait to see what recommendation the Government make after the risks, threats, options and costs have been considered before we have the debate about how that relates to our allies. I reassure him that we have the fullest appropriate co-operation with all our allies across all areas of defence.

Julian Lewis: Given the importance of the role of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in finding the money for any successor to the Trident submarine fleet, will the Secretary of State tell the House whether his good friend the Chancellor told him before he made his Mansion house speech, or only afterwards, that he was going to declare himself in favour of keeping the nuclear deterrent, not only in the present Parliament but in the long term?

Des Browne: I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman for his persistence in trying to get from me an answer other than the one that I have given him now on a number of occasions, which is that the Chancellor of the Exchequer and I have many discussions, the nature of which I consider to be confidential. It was hardly a surprise to me that my right hon. Friend should make a speech that was entirely consistent with party policy. I only wish that all of the people on these Benches would make speeches that were entirely consistent with party policy.

Julian Lewis: With the greatest respect to the Secretary of State, not only was it consistent with party policy, it went rather further, because in talking about the long term it suggested replacement, not just continuation, of the existing fleet. But let us leave that aside and take the right hon. Gentleman's answer as a no—he did not know until he read the speech. Given that the Prime Minister has said that the nuclear deterrent historically has tended to be sui generis, thus implying that separate funds would be found to pay for any successor to the present Trident fleet, can the Secretary of State confirm that it is not intended to raid the conventional defence budget to pay for a new generation of strategic nuclear deterrent?

Des Browne: I can confirm that it is not intended to raid the conventional budget to pay for a new generation of nuclear deterrent, but I do that from a position that no decision has yet been made about whether there will be a new generation. The timing of the decision will be such that it will be able to be incorporated into the discussions between the Ministry of Defence and the Treasury in the comprehensive spending review, and that is when the decisions will be made. Finally, the hon. Gentleman is not entitled to come to the conclusion that my answer meant that I did not have a conversation with my right hon. Friend about the content of his speech.

Iraq

Adrian Bailey: What the role of British forces is in reconstruction in southern Iraq.

Des Browne: The Government have an extensive development programme in support of the Iraqi people.
	The Department for International Development, with the support of UK forces, has so far committed over £417 million of assistance, including significant investment in electricity infrastructure, raising output and strengthening the grid. In the next six months further projects will deliver a range of basic services, including drinking water, to make a real difference to the everyday lives of the people of southern Iraq.

Adrian Bailey: Does my right hon. Friend agree that in the long run it is essential to build up the capacity of the Iraqis themselves to develop their own infrastructure? What are British troops doing to assist that process?

Des Browne: The key to our withdrawal and that of the multinational forces from Iraq is building the capability of the Iraqi Government, both at national and provincial level, and of the civilian infrastructure, to take responsibility for a range of measures that previously they did not have responsibility for. For example, anybody who has visited Basra and compared it with Baghdad can see what 30 years of neglect by a dictator did for that part of the country, which he determinedly ran down. It is in building that capacity that we will be able to give the people of Iraq a way forward. If my hon. Friend wants an example of what we are doing to encourage that, he needs to recognise that a significant number of very able Ministers in that Government, including the Prime Minister, have been in London today meeting their counterparts and discussing how we can help them. Significant improvements have been made in Iraq. They do not always get reported, and sometimes they are drowned out by the violence, which I acknowledge has been at an unacceptably high and very dangerous level over the past months, but improvements are taking place there daily, and a substantial part of the country has moved forward.

David Tredinnick: Does the right hon. Gentleman accept that our troops' reconstruction role in southern Iraq has been made much more difficult by the Government's failure to condemn at an early stage Israeli forces' attacks on civilian targets in Lebanon? That is a real concern, because whereas we have no troops stationed in Israel, we have thousands of troops stationed across Arabia, and many of our Arab friends are very angry about the situation. What is he going to do about it?

Des Browne: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I think that we should stick to southern Iraq. I would have expected the hon. Gentleman to ask a direct question about southern Iraq.

Harry Cohen: I again put to the Secretary of State the paucity of medical supplies and equipment in Basra's main hospital, of which a lot of Iraqis are dying as a consequence. We have also heard that a number of doctors and medical staff have been killed in the insurgency. It is my position that UK forces should stock up that hospital and, if necessary, take children out of the country to get treatment. Is that his position, and, if it is, why are UK forces not acting?

Des Browne: It is my position that the international community, including the United Kingdom, has a responsibility to support health provision in Iraq, which we have been doing. It is not my position that the answer to the needs of those who should be treated in Iraq is to provide some method of moving them out of the country. That would be no answer to the problems. I accept that people in certain professions have been targeted, including the medical profession, but the answer to that is to work with Iraqi forces and the Iraqi Government at the national and provincial levels, which is what we are doing.
	In a meeting today with the Prime Minister of Iraq, I was pleased when he told me that he has implemented proper supervision of the Basra security plan and that he will return to Iraq and visit Basra specifically to send a strong message to those from his community who are involved in the violence that it is unacceptable and that the security plan will address them. The long-term answer is to deliver security for the Iraqi people. My hon. Friend is consistent, but he should recognise the improvements. Although there have been setbacks, there have been significant improvements, too, and he should never underestimate how badly Saddam Hussein treated the people of Basra.

James Gray: The Secretary of State will, I know, agree that a central part of the reconstruction of southern Iraq, as well as our operations in Afghanistan and elsewhere, is provided by the Hercules based at RAF Lyneham in my constituency? There are currently two problems. First, there are not nearly enough Hercules, despite the extra one that he has deployed to Afghanistan. Of the 47 in the fleet, only 20 are available for purpose at any one moment—five have been deployed in the relief of Lebanon. Secondly, the fleet is at full stretch. Is it not time to consider the provision of extra heavy lift capability, perhaps by chartering a C-17 or an extra Hercules?

Des Browne: As the hon. Gentleman knows, we are looking at additional air support and airlift. However, I am satisfied that we have responded to requests from theatre and provided the assets requested by those in theatre. In my view, that is an appropriate assessment of our capability, and we have not yet found ourselves with insufficient resources.

David Taylor: Last week, Premier Koizumi from Japan completed the transfer of the last of the Japanese contingent of 600 ground self-defence forces who have been based in southern Iraq in the city of Samawa and the area around it, notionally charged with humanitarian and reconstruction objectives. Does the Secretary of State feel that our own forces will have to pick up that role and therefore become even more seriously overstretched?

Des Browne: My hon. Friend could not, with respect, be further from the truth. The Japanese, who made a significant contribution in al-Muthanna province in southern Iraq, were able not only to stand their troops down from where they were positioned in al-Muthanna but to send them home because they had achieved their objective. My hon. Friend will have noticed that coincidentally with the Japanese Government's announcement of a drawdown, there was an announcement of provincial Iraqi control—that is, with Iraqis themselves taking over responsibility for security and for the governance of al-Muthanna province. There is no need for any troops from outside Iraq to provide that in al-Muthanna, and that will increasingly be the case across Iraq.

Michael Gove: What funding allocations have been made for the financing of military operations in Iraq; and if he will make a statement.

Des Browne: There is no set budget for the future cost of operations in Iraq as costs vary with the tempo of the operation. In his recent Budget, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer set aside £800 million from within existing public spending plans for 2006-07 to meet the costs of Iraq, Afghanistan and other international commitments. Urgent funding requirements arising from operations are met from the reserve.
	If I may be permitted, Mr. Speaker, in that regard I can announce today the conclusions of an urgent review into protected vehicles for operations, particularly in Iraq. We have identified three complementary ways forward, two of which build on and accelerate work that is ongoing, and the third is new. They will be funded from an acceleration of existing funding and, in part, from substantial new funding from the Treasury for Iraq and Afghanistan. I have set out the details in a written statement. Briefly, we are ordering 100 new Vector vehicles, 70 FV430 vehicles beyond the 54 already ordered, and about 100 new Cougar wheeled armoured vehicles for both theatres.

Michael Gove: The Prime Minister recently underlined the threat to our troops in Iraq from Iranian-backed militias and Iranian-supplied weapons. I am delighted that the Minister has today announced that we are going to upgrade the armoured vehicle fleet available to our troops to protect them from that threat. However, the wheeled armoured vehicles that he has ordered will not be ready for deployment until the end of this year. What consideration was given to the procurement of battle-ready RG31 protected patrol vehicles?

Des Browne: We gave serious consideration to all the vehicles that were available. Thanks to the work that we were able to do with the Americans, and thanks particularly to significant work that my hon. Friend Lord Drayson was able to perform, we were able to identify about 100 Cougar vehicles to which the Americans were prepared to allow us to have access. We chose those because up-armoured, with electronic counter-measures added and with Bowman radios fitted, we believe that they would be the best protected mid-range vehicles in theatre. We made an objective decision to choose them instead of the RG31s. Had we chosen the RG31s, we would have had to fit ECMs and Bowman to them and possibly to up-armour them. In any event, the earliest possible time that we can get them into theatre is in the context of the six-month period of the next two roulements for Iraq and for Afghanistan. It physically could not be done any more quickly with any vehicle.

Patrick Mercer: The Government have seen fit to finance a reserve battalion for Iraq stationed in Cyprus. The Secretary of State mentioned an unprecedented level of violence, which would seem to suggest that those reserves could be needed at any moment. Almost half the combat power of the 2nd Battalion the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers has been sent to Afghanistan, not Iraq. Have we run out of money or run out of soldiers?

Des Browne: We have not run out of either money or soldiers. My announcement today, coupled with others that I have made about urgent operational requirements for both our theatres, show that, when resources are necessary, we will find them.
	The deployment of individual soldiers is a matter for the Army. Identifying the appropriate troops, from whatever service, is entirely a matter for the services.

Mark Harper: Given the tempo of operations in Afghanistan and the necessary cost that that implies, and given that the Secretary of State has confirmed that, before next year's comprehensive spending review, no strategic defence review or review of defence planning assumptions will take place, is he confident that the Chancellor will continue to fund the current or possibly increased tempo of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan from a special reserve, or will the costs fall on the regular defence budget?

Des Browne: The hon. Gentleman has no reason to believe that the Treasury will not respond to the requests for additional resources for theatre and give access to the special reserve appropriately for them. There has been no occasion on which the Treasury has denied that access and there is no reason for the hon. Gentleman to start baseless speculation that that is likely to happen in future.

Nuclear Deterrent

Danny Alexander: Whether the House will have an opportunity to vote on the replacement of the UK's strategic nuclear deterrent.

Des Browne: The answer is yes.

Danny Alexander: I welcome the decision to allow Parliament a vote. I hope that its timing will allow for not only a full and informed debate in Parliament but proper public consultation. Given that a vote solely on options for a nuclear deterrent would be inadequate, will the Secretary of State clarify whether it will be on the substantive question of whether the UK retains a nuclear deterrent?

Des Browne: I can give the hon. Gentleman a specific and clear answer: there will be a vote. I have not at this stage determined the question. I will not be in a position to help him until the threats, risks, options and costs are worked out and the Government reach a view to inform the debate that is already taking place.
	I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not join all the other people who suggest that the Government should not reach a view and that we will have a remarkable debate in this country in which Ministers or the Government are the only ones who are not allowed a view. Every time one expresses anything that approximates a view, everybody suggests that the debate has been closed down. There will be a debate—indeed, it is already taking place—the question will emerge, and there will be a vote on it.

Brian Jenkins: My right hon. Friend is right that we should have a vote following a debate. However, the debate should be informed. He has been asked once what estimates he will contribute to the debate. Although he may not have them now, what is his prediction for the month when we will get estimates that allow us all to take part in an informed debate?

Des Browne: A substantial amount of information about the current position is in the public domain. Almost every day, I answer a raft of questions that are designed to tease out individual pieces of information that can inform the debate. The Government's position could not be clearer. We have set a timetable for around the end of the year and we will have an open and transparent debate. The Government have said that we will publish a White Paper to inform the debate. In my view, it must contain the components to answer all the questions, but only once the risks, threats, options and costs have been worked out. What is the point of my standing here speculating until those matters are worked out?

Angus Robertson: I do not want to be too helpful to the Secretary of State but it is obvious to me that the Government will be in favour of a new generation of weapons of mass destruction, that the Conservative Opposition will support the new generation of weapons of mass destruction and that the Scottish National party will oppose them. Would not it be helpful to know the Liberal Democrats' position?

Des Browne: I cannot answer for the Liberal Democrats—they can answer for themselves when the time comes. It comes as no surprise that the Scottish National party is opposed to continuing—if it comes to that—with a nuclear deterrent. The SNP is opposed to NATO. Its defence policy is not clear apart from complaining about British soldiers, whom it does not intend to support in future.

Ian Lucas: I warmly welcome the Government's commitment to holding a vote on this extremely important issue; they are not being given sufficient credit for that, just as they were not given sufficient credit for holding a vote on the war in Iraq. We need an informed debate, however, and one of its most important aspects will be the nature of the security threat that this country will face, which will be very different from those that we have faced in the past. What information will Back Benchers be given to enable them to make the correct decisions?

Des Browne: My hon. Friend can look forward to having the opportunity to consider the available evidence on the nature of the risks and threats to our defence and security that we might face over the next 20 to 50 years. It will be the Government's duty to reflect on the full range of threats to the security of the nation, so as to inform the nation and its parliamentarians about the decision that they will need to make on how we configure our defence for that very uncertain future.

Crispin Blunt: There is consensus between the Government and the Opposition—it probably does not include the majority of Labour Back Benchers or the smaller parties in the House—on the need for a new deterrent, but it will be essential to our debate that we understand the alternatives between what might be described as an expensive option and the cheaper options. Some of the options might have been discarded by the Government when they made their proposals. Will they make it clear to the House what those discarded proposals are, so that we have the opportunity to debate them as well?

Des Browne: I assure the hon. Gentleman that there will be no hiding, discarding or non-publishing of information. The Government want the fullest possible informed debate on this issue. When options are considered and discarded, I will accept the responsibility for explaining why that has happened, if indeed it comes to that. The problem with hon. Members asking such questions at this stage is that I always have to qualify my answers by saying that the risks, threats, options and costs have not yet been assessed, and that no recommendations have been made to any member of the Government. I am therefore not in a position to explain to the hon. Gentleman what the shape of the White Paper will be. However, it seems to me that it ought to take into account the geopolitical side as well as the military issues.

Non-proliferation Treaty

Simon Hughes: What recent steps he has taken to meet commitments under article VI of the non-proliferation treaty.

Adam Ingram: The United Kingdom has a proud record on fulfilling its disarmament obligations under article VI of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, which remains the cornerstone of this country's nuclear non-proliferation policy. Since 1998, we have withdrawn and dismantled the WE177 nuclear bomb and all of our remaining Chevaline warheads. As a result, Trident is now our only nuclear weapons system, and we are the only recognised nuclear weapons state to have reduced to a single platform. These steps have reduced our operationally available stockpile of nuclear weapons to fewer than 200 warheads, which represents a reduction of more than 70 per cent. in the potential explosive power of our nuclear forces since the end of the cold war.

Simon Hughes: I am grateful to the Minister for his helpful and full answer. Following the exchanges between my hon. Friends the Members for Cheadle (Mark Hunter) and for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Danny Alexander) and the Secretary of State, and given the principle of irreversibility agreed at the nuclear proliferation treaty conference in 2000, will the Minister tell us whether any increase in the United Kingdom's nuclear capacity would be compatible with our obligations under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty to which he has just referred?

Adam Ingram: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for thanking me for my full answer. He should understand that that full answer means that we will be fully compliant with our international obligations under that treaty. This is why we have been so supportive of the United States' statement on the draft fissile material cut-off treaty, which represented a way forward on these issues. We are leading the way, and seeking new ways to achieve disarmament. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will recognise that and congratulate the Government on all that we have done, and on all that we will do in the future.

Richard Benyon: On the important matter of the decommissioning of nuclear weapons, will the Minister pay tribute to the work carried out by the thousands of people who work at the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston? In the context of the wider debate, will he also pay tribute to them not only for the work that they are doing today but for the work that they have done in the past and the work that they will do in the future to protect this country's security?

Adam Ingram: The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point, which I sought to answer in an earlier response. This work not only plays an important part in the defence of this country, in our role in NATO and in trying to maintain peace and stability in a troubled globe, but makes a major contribution to the science and technology base of this country. We need only consider the thousands of scientists and technicians who have been through not just AWE but other support elements of the defence industry in this country to recognise the quality and worth of their contribution. They defend us, but they also strengthen our economic and manufacturing base.

Afghanistan

Tim Loughton: From what sources additional military helicopters for Afghanistan will be drawn.

Andrew Turner: Pursuant to his oral statement of 10 July 2006,  Official Report, columns 1132-35, on troop levels in Afghanistan, from what sources additional equipment needs in Afghanistan will be met.

Des Browne: We will provide two additional CH47 helicopters, one in September and one in October. One will be drawn from the Falklands, and might be replaced by a commercial contract. The other will be drawn from the Chinook-47 deployable pool. Those changes, coupled with recently announced increases in helicopter hours, will give us the flexibility required to meet the demand. Helicopter force levels will remain under constant review.

Tim Loughton: My constituent has just received an e-mail from her brother, who is serving in Afghanistan, which ends:
	"If it weren't for the inherent stubbornness and capability of the honest Tommy to simply get things done, the true professionalism of the best armed forces on this earth coupled with the exceptional efforts of a few exceptional officers, the prospects for this campaign would be bleak indeed".
	Does the Secretary of State agree that it is essential that the lives of those brave British Tommys taking part in this vital mission should not be put at risk due to poor availability or poor positioning of essential kit, including helicopters? In that respect, how many helicopters are currently fit for purpose? What is he doing to reduce the number that are currently out of service?

Des Browne: The force that we have deployed in Afghanistan, and the additional forces that I announced to be deployed there, were designed by the commanders and approved by the chiefs of staff. I have not, and nor have any of my predecessors, refused to provide anything that has been requested for our operations in Afghanistan. As the hon. Gentleman will know, we have provided additional support for the helicopter fleet in particular.

Andrew Turner: The mere fact that we are replacing helicopters elsewhere with contractors suggests that there is a shortage of helicopters. I, too, am receiving communications from relatives of people deployed in Afghanistan who are concerned about the level of support. Can the Secretary of State tell me how many other countries in NATO are deploying helicopters in Afghanistan?

Des Browne: If the hon. Gentleman receives such communication, he should pass it on to me immediately, and I will deal with it. I look forward to receiving from him tomorrow the communication that he has received in relation to those matters. The conclusion that he draws about the deployment of those two helicopters is incorrect. The fact that we are deploying helicopters from the Falklands suggests that the military are doing what they do. If resource can be deployed from somewhere else to do that work, that seems to me to be appropriate. Again, if the hon. Gentleman has concerns that come to him from constituents, he should pass them on to me and I will deal with them.

Child Support Redesign

John Hutton: With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a statement on the Government's plans for reform of the child support system.
	Parents, whether they live together or not, have a moral as well as a legal responsibility to support their children. Relationships end, but responsibilities do not. Government and society have a clear interest in ensuring that those responsibilities are honoured. That was the foundation on which the Child Support Act 1991 rested, and I believe that those are the right foundations on which to build any future system of child support. But as we know, despite the best efforts of its staff the overall performance of the Child Support Agency has fallen well short of expectations. When we came to office the agency cost more to run than it collected in maintenance, and it has been taking longer to process claims than the court arrangements that it replaced.
	The Child Support, Pensions and Social Security Act 2000 made important changes, simplifying maintenance calculations and allowing parents with care on benefit to keep up to £10 of any maintenance received. Since 1997, the agency has nearly doubled the number of cases receiving maintenance payments. However, as we all know, problems have persisted. Only a minority of cases handled by the CSA receive any maintenance at all. There is a backlog of around 300,000 cases. Debts of over £3 billion have built up, with limited prospects of recovery. There is a net cost to the taxpayer of around £200 million per year. Levels of customer service, although they have improved recently, have never reached the standards of quality and consistency that the public are entitled to expect.
	The need for radical overhaul is clear, but I do not believe that the continuing problems are due to a failing on the part of the staff of the agency. Rather, I believe that they are due to a failing of the policy framework, and of the system that the staff are being asked to run. That is why, in February, I asked Sir David Henshaw to redesign our system of child support. He has now presented his recommendations to me. Copies are available in the Vote Office and on my Department's website, together with the Government's response.
	Sir David has recommended an entirely new system for child support that will be simpler to use and administer, will be tougher on parents who do not face up to their responsibilities and will make a bigger impact on the reduction in child poverty, while delivering value for money for the taxpayer. His recommendations have four main elements.
	First, Sir David believes that the system should focus on tackling child poverty by ensuring that parents with care keep more of the maintenance owed to them. He recommends that lone parents on benefit should be allowed to keep more maintenance through a significant increase in the extent to which child maintenance is disregarded in income-related benefits.
	Secondly, Sir David believes that a new system should promote greater personal responsibility by ensuring that, wherever possible, we help parents reach their own financial arrangements for the maintenance of their children. That means reconfiguring advice services to improve the quality and accessibility of information and guidance for parents. Sir David also believes that the Government should remove the requirement that parents with care on benefits make an application for child maintenance through the CSA even when a perfectly satisfactory private arrangement already exists. As a first step towards getting maintenance flowing to children, Sir David recommends that, with up to a fifth of potential child support cases not having their fathers' names on their birth certificates, we should consider the joint registration of births.
	When parents cannot reach an amicable agreement, the parents with care need to be confident that the enforcement arrangements will be effective. The third element of Sir David's recommendations is the introduction of new, tougher enforcement powers, including the withdrawal of passports. He also recommends exploring the potential to make better use of existing financial penalties.
	Fourthly, Sir David proposes that there should be a clean break with the past. He believes that the delivery of child support requires a fresh start with a new organisation. He believes that there should be no automatic conversion of cases from the two existing schemes to the new redesigned system. Instead, parents wishing to use the new system should be able to reapply. He recommends that there should be a separate residuary body to "manage down" and enforce old debt, and that we should consider how best to give the new organisation power to charge clients for using the new system.
	Sir David has consulted widely in producing his recommendations. I am grateful to him for his work, and grateful to all who have contributed to it. As his report shows, tougher enforcement and a substantially higher disregard could increase the number of children receiving maintenance to about 1.75 million, compared with just 1.1 million today. The changes will lift many more children out of poverty, and a smaller, more focused agency that deals with significantly fewer cases will deliver better value to the taxpayer, with administrative costs substantially lower over the long run. Although there is still a great deal of detail to be dealt with, I think it right that the Government should signal their view of the way ahead.
	We have decided to accept the principal recommendations. We will therefore bring forward legislation at the earliest opportunity to remove the requirement that all parents with care claiming benefit are treated as applying for child maintenance. We agree with Sir David's recommendation that there should be a higher disregard, but that must ensure a fair deal for taxpayers and avoid sending any signal that families might be better off apart than together, so we intend significantly to increase the level of the current disregard of £10. Details will be confirmed later this year.
	Both those changes will help more families to receive more maintenance and reduce the risk of child poverty. They reflect both the rights of children to be properly maintained by their parents and the right of society to ensure that parental responsibilities are properly discharged. We also agree that the delivery of child support requires a fresh start. We will therefore create a new organisation to replace the CSA and we will strengthen enforcement powers.
	We intend to go even further and seek legislation to strengthen the powers available to the agency to recover maintenance from those who repeatedly fail to pay, including through the imposition of curfews as well as the suspension of passports. We will explore publicising successful prosecutions, including the feasibility of naming those who have been prosecuted. We will continue the CSA's current operational improvement plan, which is already improving our capacity to trace people who owe maintenance and which should see the CSA collecting a further £250 million in unpaid maintenance.
	There is still a great deal of detail in Sir David's report that should now properly be the subject of fuller consultation and debate. In particular, we want to consult on the best way to allow existing claimants either to move to private arrangements or to make a claim to the new system. We must ensure that, where people currently receive maintenance through the CSA, they continue to do so, if they wish, under the new system, without disrupting the payment of child maintenance.
	We should consult on how best to deal with the legacy of debt that is left, while protecting the interests of both families and the taxpayer. We should also consult on the appropriate role for the courts in the new approach, how to improve parental responsibility from birth—including the possibility of compulsory registration for fathers—and how we can further simplify and improve the current assessment, collection and enforcement processes. We will also consult on the details of any new charging regime.
	In advance of legislation, I intend to publish a White Paper later this year, which will set out in greater detail the way forward in all of these areas. In the meantime, I have asked Sir David to report to me on the policy and implementation issues that arise from his first report. During the process of change, agency staff are entitled to expect the full support of my Department, and they will have it. In particular, we will do all we can to help and support staff through the transition to the new organisation and in their efforts to ensure that children and families receive the maintenance to which they are properly entitled.
	The original proposals for child support had a wide and broad measure of support in the House, but the consensus on aims was never translated into a consensus on means: we must not repeat the same mistake. That is why I want the new arrangements now be established to command the broadest possible measure of agreement. I believe that there is a clear sense, both in the House and outside it, that our system of child support needs radical change. It must offer better value for money for the taxpayer, enforce the rights of children and the responsibilities of parents more successfully and ensure that families and children in particular do not slide into poverty when parents split up.
	I believe that the proposals I have set out today can help us better to achieve those vital objectives, which is why I commend the statement to the House.

Philip Hammond: I thank the Secretary of State for his courtesy in letting me have a copy of the statement in advance, although he will understand that we have not yet had a chance to absorb the details of Sir David's report.
	I am sorry to tell the Secretary of State that his statement will be a disappointment to the 1.5 million families trapped in the shambles of the Child Support Agency, particularly the 900,000 who are trapped in the old system. The statistics are familiar to the House and the Secretary of State recited them again today, so I shall not repeat them, but what those people wanted to hear today was, above all, a timetable for moving them on to a new system of assessment. What they have got is yet another delay for further reports and more consultation, so they will feel let down once again.
	The Government have invested half a billion pounds of taxpayers' money in their redesign of the CSA system and now propose to turn their back on that investment and start again. The headline in press releases this morning is "CSA to be scrapped", but the reality is that the existing, failing CSA will be rebranded and left with its difficult case load while the political spotlight will be shifted to a new body with low costs, no legacy and a carefully controlled onflow of suitable new cases.
	We share the Government's stated determination to maintain the obligation on both parents to contribute to the upbringing and support of a child. We also share the view that, where those arrangements can be made voluntarily, they should be. But in the real world, that will often not be the case, and it is not obvious what the incentive of a high benefit disregard will achieve in those cases that are not settled voluntarily. If a CSA application is made, we are back in exactly the position that we are now. If a CSA application is not made, we are back in exactly the position that we are now, with the difference that there will not even be a theoretical accrual of liability by the absent parent to offset the state's payments to support the lone parent and her children. The absent parent will be totally off the hook, so what price the Government's commitment to both parents contributing to their children's support?
	Any advantage that the proposed change will bring lies solely in the cases where voluntary arrangements are made. Does the Secretary of State have any evidence about the proportion of benefit cases that that might involve? I note that, when he first referred to Sir David's recommendation to remove the requirement that parents on benefits with care must make a CSA application, he used the phrase,
	"when there is a perfectly satisfactory private arrangement already in place".
	But when he went on to announce that the Government would legislate to remove the requirement, there was no reference to the qualifying condition. So perhaps he can clarify whether the requirement will be removed in all cases, or only in cases where there is evidence that a satisfactory voluntary private agreement exists.
	I also assume that the higher level of disregard will apply to all payments, not just those made voluntarily. If that is the case, while that disregard may have a significant impact on tackling child poverty in lone parent families, it will not operate as an incentive to agree voluntary arrangements, which I understood to be the Secretary of State's original motivation for using the higher disregard in those cases only.
	We have heard nothing of how parents not on benefit will be encouraged to make voluntary arrangements—other than vague reference to a threat to charge for the new agency's services. I suspect that on an otherwise rather dismal day that may be the only thought that raises some merriment in single parent households that are trapped in the CSA bureaucracy at the moment.
	Most importantly, the Secretary of State failed to deal with the key issue: the robustness of the assessment process, which was the focus of the 2000 Act reforms—sacrificing precision for simplicity—that are now acknowledged to have failed. Is the right hon. Gentleman really proposing to set up a new body attempting to assess and constantly reassess a payment that is due on the basis of fluctuating or uncertain in-year income? Unless the assessment process is made robust for those difficult cases, no system of collection will be effective. If the value of the claim cannot be accurately assessed on a real-time basis, no enforcement system, however draconian, will work.
	There is no reason to suppose that the new agency will be any more successful than the old if it is constantly struggling to establish and maintain an accurate basis of assessment. When the right hon. Gentleman described Sir David's remit as a redesign of the system, I understood that he was prepared to tackle this issue, but there is nothing in the statement on it—nothing, as the product of the past six months' work, except a reference to it as something that requires further consultation and debate. There is no recognition of the fundamental importance of the assessment tool to a robust system of child maintenance.
	We will look carefully at Sir David's report and its implications. In the meantime, I have a couple of specific questions for the right hon. Gentleman. Can he give the House an estimate of the cost of the proposals? Obviously, the £200 million that the CSA is collecting for the Exchequer as a contribution to the agency's costs will be lost. In fact, far from scrapping the agency, there will be the cost of maintaining two separate bodies, so can he tell us what the overall cost will be?
	Can the Secretary of State also tell us what the programme will be for migration from the existing system to the new system, and over what period that will take place? Presumably, some people will have to remain with the residual agency, as access to the new system will have to be rationed at the outset in order to prevent it from being swamped. How will the Secretary of State deliver a perception of fairness in that migration process, as being on the new system will bring a huge financial benefit but it seems inevitable that that will have to be rationed over a number of years?
	Can the Secretary of State give us a bit more of a feel about the level of the disregard? If he cannot give the exact amount of that, can he at least give some indication of it, because it is very difficult to understand the proposals without that? In his comments, he recognised that there is a risk that introducing a large disregard might create a perverse incentive for struggling families to give up and split up. What work has he done to establish to his own satisfaction that that will not result from the changes that he has announced today? Finally, can he tell us who will run this new body? Will they be the same people who run and staff the existing CSA?
	We are disappointed by this statement, as will be hundreds of thousands of lone parents. It is mightily thin on substance. It consists of a rebranding exercise with no change to the substantive arrangements in, I suspect, a majority of cases, and that is not a solution for the families involved. We recognise that there is a need to make the system more effective, and to be more pragmatic about ways to increase the flow of maintenance, without losing sight of the underlying principles. Unfortunately however, it is not clear that the proposals address the fundamental flaws in the system. Having just poured half a billion pounds down the drain in respect of the CS2 system, the Government cannot safely move on and start again without being 100 per cent. sure that the real underlying causes of the problem have been identified and fixed.

John Hutton: It is unclear to me—and I suspect to most of my hon. Friends—what the hon. Gentleman's view is of Sir David Henshaw's report, and whether the hon. Gentleman will be able to give any indication today as to whether any of the proposals in it attract his interest or support. I find it bizarre in the extreme that he seems to want us to continue with the existing arrangements, as most of us, irrespective of which party we belong to, know that that would serve only to trap people inside a failing system that is not delivering for parents. [Hon. Members: "That is what the Government are doing."] I note the comments from Conservative Members, so I think that I should send a copy of the statement to the hon. Gentleman again so that he can have another look at it, along with Sir David's report.
	These are undoubtedly the most radical reforms to the child support system that any Minister has brought before this House since the establishment of the Child Support Agency. I ask the hon. Gentleman to take a little more time to study the detail of the statement and of Sir David's report. These reforms will address the fundamental flaws in the current system. We are encouraging parents to reach their own agreements—I would have thought, given all the ideological baggage that the Conservative party is keen to lose at the moment, that that at least would be one thing that they would want to support today. But, sadly, we did not hear such words of support.

Theresa May: Yes, you did.

John Hutton: Well, I do not think any Labour Members heard such words of support for that fundamental change.
	We will remove the obligation on all cases; the hon. Gentleman asked about that, and we certainly intend to do that. The maintenance disregard will of course apply only in relation to benefit cases—obviously, it will not apply to other cases. The hon. Gentleman also asked about the assessment process. I think that there is broad support for that; Sir David Henshaw certainly found broad support for the reforms introduced in the 2000 Act, and we do not intend to revisit the issue.
	The hon. Gentleman asked four specific questions. He asked about the estimate of long-term operating costs. Sir David has estimated that the changes to the administration of child support will probably save us 50 per cent. of the current operating costs of the agency. Of course, there will be other costs associated with making the changes, but they will depend on the detail of the proposals that we bring forward in the White Paper in the autumn.
	On migration, Sir David recognised that more work will need to be done on that. I felt that it was important that Members could see the outlines of the new system as soon as possible; that is why I asked Sir David to bring his initial recommendations forward as quickly as possible. He himself recognised that a significant amount of work still needs to be done in that regard. It will be done as a matter of urgency, and I will take it as my responsibility to ensure that Members in all parts of the House have full sight of, and full involvement in, the development of that important work.
	The hon. Gentleman asked whether I can give further details today on the maintenance disregard. All that I can say to him and to Members in all parts of the House is that it will not be 100 per cent., because such a figure would send the wrong signal about the balance of responsibilities between parents and taxpayers. Some interesting American evidence shows that, if one focuses more on dealing with child poverty as the principal objective in child support systems, there is, in particular, no discernible impact on incentives to work. That is a very important lesson that we need to reflect on. The hon. Gentleman also asked who is going to run the new arrangements and with the greatest of respect to him, it is just a little too early to name any names in that regard.

Terry Rooney: May I congratulate the Secretary of State on today's statement? This has been a sorry 15 years of the CSA's history that we have had to bear. Does he agree that the two principal factors that we need to consider are parental responsibility for maintaining their own children and attacking the child poverty target? Does he further agree that the full compliance of parents would have a significant impact on the child poverty figure?

John Hutton: I agree strongly with what my hon. Friend has said. He and the other Members of the Work and Pensions Select Committee made it very clear in their most recent report on the CSA that it really was time for the Government to consider setting up a new organisation that could pursue the very important objectives set out in it. I can confirm to him and to the House that those will be the principal objectives of the new system, and I am confident that, in the light of the arrangements that I have set out today, we can make those responsibilities stick.

David Laws: May I thank the Secretary of State for his typical courtesy in making available a copy of the statement and of the documents so far in advance of today's oral statement? May I also congratulate Sir David Henshaw and his team on completing this work in such a short time? Does not the speed of Sir David's work contrast with the Government's own tardiness in dealing with this issue since 1997 and, indeed, since the 2005 general election? I remind the Secretary of State that since that election, we have had a review of the CSA's future, followed by a redesign of the policy on the CSA. We are now being offered today a consultation on the CSA's future, to be followed by a White Paper on the CSA's future. If the Secretary of State's own document is to be believed, that will followed merely by
	"an ambition...to see some aspects of the new system in place from 2008".
	In other words, what he is offering us today is that, 11 years after his Government came to power,
	"some aspects of the new system"
	will be in place. Does he think that that is really good enough, and does he acknowledge that his Government have wasted 10 years in dealing with this issue?
	Is that point not also reinforced by what Sir David says at the beginning of his own document? He says that he had a very demanding timetable that was
	"not sufficient to allow for a full redesign",
	but which allowed him to indicate only "the direction" of his new policy.
	The Secretary of State said today that the CSA is going to be scrapped, which is what we have heard according to all the spin outside this place. He had previously said that he would not scrap it until he was clear what it was going to be replaced with. What is it going to be replaced with? Is it not astonishing that all that he can say today, in paragraph 55 of his own document, about the CSA's future replacement is that there are a range of approaches that could be taken to the structure of the governance of such an organisation, and that an intensive programme of work will be undertaken, including full consultation with staff, to figure out a way forward? Is it really acceptable that, after 11 years in power—that is how long this Government will have been in power when these measures will, so the Secretary of State says, be implemented—he still does not know what he intends to replace the CSA with?
	Is the agency going to remain under the DWP? Is it still going to be run by the existing chief executive, and is it going to be based at the existing locations? If so, is this not going to end up being a re-badging, rather than a fundamental replacement of the existing agency? The Secretary of State indicated that he intends to reinforce enforcement powers. Why has he proposed to introduce curfews for non-resident parents who are not adhering to their child support obligations when that proposal was not made by Sir David Henshaw? Will he tell us how effective that is likely to be? Is it likely to be as ineffective as previous Government gimmicks, such as withdrawing driving licences? That measure was used only 11 times in four and a half years.
	We welcome the new emphasis on people making their own arrangements and the higher disregard that Sir David recommended and that the Secretary of State has undertaken to consider, but will he assure us that he will not use a charging mechanism for resident parents who have to use the agency and have had to deal with an incompetent service over the previous 13 years of the agency's life, and who would be astonished to have to pay for the use of this incompetent agency in the future? Have the Government gone far enough in giving the new CSA access to the sort of income details that it would be able to get if it were part of Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs, and the ability to deduct money directly at source?
	Today's statement, which was made almost 10 years after the Labour party came to power, contained a set of proposals that seem to amount to no more than re-badging with additional lengthy delay and more gimmicks. Should we not have expected more after 10 years?

John Hutton: I say to the hon. Gentleman what I said to the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond): this is not a re-badging exercise, but a fundamental change to every aspect—root and branch—of the child support system. The hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Laws) did not have the courage of his previous convictions and did not repeat his support for the transfer of responsibilities to HMRC. As he will know, that was considered on page 50 of Sir David Henshaw's report and rejected for perfectly sensible reasons. He and his hon. Friends could usefully go away and study that. We cannot solve the problem of the administration by simply relocating it to a different part of Government. That is not the right way to deal with the problems of the CSA, because those problems are not just organisational or administrative. They are much more fundamental than that. That is why Sir David has come to his view that transferring the CSA to HMRC, which I understand is the hon. Gentleman's policy, would not be right. We have no intention whatsoever of taking that course.
	The hon. Gentleman berated the Government for taking 11 years to come to this decision. We tried very hard. We have tried repeatedly in recent years to make the arrangements that we inherited work. We have revisited the legislation and invested heavily in support and IT systems for the CSA. It does not work. We should have the courage to say that it is time to turn over a new leaf. That is what I am trying to do. He might catch up with us at some point, but I am afraid that he is significantly behind the curve today.
	Most of the changes will require primary legislation. That is why we cannot announce the detail of all of them today. We cannot implement them until both Houses of Parliament have agreed that there should be changes to the primary legislation. That is called the democratic process and the hon. Gentleman will have to take part in that, as everyone else will, and I am sure that we will hear his views in due course.
	I have made it clear that the operational details in relation to the structure of the new organisation will be set out in the White Paper. In relation to the enforcement powers, Sir David Henshaw suggested that we take on board the idea of a passport disqualification power and we will certainly do that. He has also made it clear in the report—the hon. Gentleman should study it—that he wants us to consider what further measures might add to the enforcement powers of the Child Support Agency. It is important that we have the powers. They will not necessarily always be used, but they will be a deterrent. That is the point and that is the way in which we should judge the success of all these issues. I want the CSA, now and in the future, to come down like a ton of bricks on absent fathers—it is usually absent fathers, but let us say absent parents—who are not discharging their legal and moral duties to support their children.
	We will look for support from both sides of the House to strengthen the enforcement powers of the Child Support Agency, and I am sure that I will have it from my hon. Friends. When it comes to making some of the hard decisions, these guys—the Liberal Democrats—are never to be found anywhere on the premises. Given that, the hon. Gentleman's response is entirely predictable.

Several hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I remind the House that I expect only one supplementary from Back Benchers.

Joan Humble: I welcome today's statement and the recognition that too many children are being let down by the agency. Will the Secretary of State expand on his comments about the role of Child Support Agency staff? They are working very hard to implement both the old formula and the new formula, but they will now be dealing with phone calls about his statement and coping with uncertainty about their future in whatever the new structure will be.

John Hutton: I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. Those are major issues for the CSA and its staff to deal with. The Department will be providing all the support that it possibly can to help CSA staff to cope with the changes. She is right that there is likely to be immediate pressure on the staff. It is our responsibility to ensure that we provide every support that we can to them and we will certainly do that. We will consult closely with the trade unions of the CSA and work closely with CSA management and Stephen Geraghty, its excellent chief executive, to make sure that the reforms work in the way in which we intend. There will be full and proper consultation with all stakeholders, including the CSA staff themselves. Incidentally, the staff are doing a brilliant job for all of us, so it is our responsibility to support them to the fullest possible extent.

Eric Pickles: The Secretary of State said that he wants to come down like a ton of bricks on parents who do not contribute, but does he understand that the important thing is to get the infrastructure in place so that offices can talk to offices, e-mails can be answered, telephone calls can be returned and thousands of files do not just disappear as clerical files? He will recall that I wrote to him recently about a case, on which he kindly intervened. The senior resolution caseworkers have been involved, as has the hotline, but the case is stuck in Preston in a file that no one can see. Does the suggestion that there will be no automatic conversion of cases mean that my constituent will have to start again? She and her family have been deserted by a deadbeat father. How can I explain to her that the Government have now deserted her?

John Hutton: I will take further interest in the case that the hon. Gentleman cited, but I hope that he will make it clear that we are not deserting families. It is necessary to replace the CSA with a new organisation for reasons that are pretty widely accepted across the House, despite the comments of the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge. In the intervening period, it is important that we do all that we can to support people, such as the constituent of the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. Pickles), who are not getting the support to which they are entitled from the CSA.
	By the way, we are investing another £120 million over the next three years in trying to deal with this and other related ongoing problems of the CSA. We are in no way walking away from the problems in the CSA that are there for us all to see. If the hon. Gentleman wants to confirm the details of the case to me again, I will certainly take a personal interest in it.

Lynda Waltho: I was pleased to hear several of my right hon. Friend's comments, but may I return to the staff? Many of my constituents and those of my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley, North (Mr. Austin) work at the Dudley call centre. Many are women, some of whom are lone parents with family responsibilities themselves. I met several over the weekend who were concerned about what was coming out in the press and worried about what might happen to their jobs. Will my right hon. Friend take this opportunity to congratulate those staff on their work and diligence up to now? They have coped with all sorts of reorganisations and their stress levels have reached the point at which many of them have become ill. They have sometimes suffered abuse from parents who have become upset on the other end of the phone. Will he not only congratulate the staff, but reassure them about their employment prospects for the future?

John Hutton: I am happy to do that. The staff of the CSA do an immensely difficult job, often in difficult circumstances. It is incumbent on all of us in the House to do all that we can to support them in discharging the functions that we ask them to deliver on our behalf. As I said, we will certainly be working closely with the trade unions and the management to ensure that the reforms are a success. CSA staff have coped with major change before, so I am confident that they will be able to do so again.

Alistair Burt: I listened to the Secretary of State with great care and with no little sympathy, as he would understand. Although he might have been irked to some degree by the reservations of my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond), I am sure he will recall that one of the reasons we are in the mess we are in is that the House was far too consensual during the passage of the legislation. The Secretary of State will be helped rather than hindered if careful and serious questions are asked at the earliest possible stage.
	In ensuring that the levels of maintenance, even under voluntary arrangements, do not go back to the original derisory levels that caused the CSA to intervene, does the Secretary of State intend to venture into the difficult territory of the relationship between access and maintenance, or will the new agency or new arrangements maintain the rigid separation between the two? Over the years, the difficulties of those two issues coming together have led to much unhappiness in the way in which child support is handled.

John Hutton: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his comments. I was not irked by the remarks of the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge; I was just rather disappointed by them because he has not recognised the seriousness of our proposals. I hope that he will come to do so in due course.
	We will keep custody and maintenance strictly separate. It is essential that we do so. I understand that in the heat of separation there are often difficulties around custody and access to children, but if we confuse the responsibility of parents to support their children financially with other issues, we will take a giant step backwards. We will not blur that distinction. As the hon. Member for North-East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) was one of the principal architects of the original scheme that we are trying to fix, I am sure that he will play an important role in our proceedings in the House.

Frank Field: In congratulating the Secretary of State on his courage in making today's statement, may I make a plea for taxpayers? Since the Government rejected ministerial advice that the current system was not reformable, we have asked taxpayers to foot a bill of £50 billion for single-parent families. Does he accept that the more generous we are with the disregard under the new scheme, the bigger that bill will remain for individual taxpayers, and the more generous we are in the disregard, the more likely it is that some families will decide that it pays to pretend that they have split up, claim benefit and continue as they were? Are we not all wiser about the extent to which fraud can be committed from the response that we saw to the tax credit system?
	Lastly, I make a plea that the Secretary of State keep together payment of maintenance and access. Many males who want to see their children and who regularly pay their maintenance feel that that is not taken into account fully in court. It is surely a sign of their good character that they have no access although every week they pay.

John Hutton: I accept my right hon. Friend's caution about the level of the maintenance disregard. I assure him that we intend to proceed very carefully in that regard. It is fundamental to the reforms, however, that if we want to move to a system whereby we encourage and, yes, incentivise couples who are separating to reach their own financial arrangements on separation, we will necessarily have to look at being more generous in relation to the income support rules. That is what we intend to do. As I said clearly in my statement, we are not moving to 100 per cent. maintenance disregard, because that probably would hold out the prospect of some of the perverse consequences to which he alluded.

Gregory Campbell: Is the indication in Sir David's report of possibly reaching a maintenance figure of 1.75 million children, most of whom live in poverty, as distinct from the 1.1 million currently reached, to be a Government target? If so, when can we expect it to be reached? In addition, will there be recruitment to the new agency or new organisation that replaces the CSA? If so, will the Secretary of State ensure that the Government do their best to ensure that recruitment to those employee levels in Northern Ireland reflects the community, unlike the situation in the recent past?

John Hutton: We are not planning any immediate changes to the targets that we set for the CSA. The figures to which the hon. Gentleman refers, and which Sir David mentions, are the likely consequences of moving to the new arrangement once we have passed primary legislation and established the changes. It is too early for me to say whether we will then want to set a target along the lines set out in Sir David Henshaw's report. There is an ongoing process across government whereby public agencies sign up to agreements and targets.
	In relation to the hon. Gentleman's final point about recruitment, with the greatest respect, it is too early to be clear about all the details. Clearly, if the CSA is in the business of recruiting to the new organisation, that recruitment must be ethical, legal, fair and balanced across the United Kingdom, and it will be.

Anne Begg: I congratulate the Minister on being bold, because it is often difficult for a Government to admit that they have perhaps been throwing good money after bad and to conclude that the time has come to draw a line and start afresh. That was certainly the conclusion to which the Select Committee came: it was a failing agency and something radical and different had to be done—so well done on that. However, does my right hon. Friend have any advice for non-resident parents who on hearing the statement today and as a result of some of the headlines may think that there is no Child Support Agency and that therefore they have no responsibility for their children in the interim, and might be tempted to stop paying?

John Hutton: I have one very clear message: the law will be enforced. That is why we are taking new and additional powers. We are investing more in the organisational improvement programme to speed further the recovery of unpaid maintenance. I want non-resident parents to hear today the very important message that, until we make the changes, the current law will be enforced rigorously and effectively. As I said, we will throw the book at people who are holding up two fingers to society and their families in not discharging their financial responsibilities.

John Maples: The CSA has been particularly hopeless in dealing with the cases of self-employed fathers who seem to manage to live extremely well on negligible incomes and who change some minor aspect of their affairs when they are in danger of being caught up with in order to be put back to the bottom of the heap. I am sure we all have experience of that. Is the Secretary of State confident that his new system will be able to deal with that problem?

John Hutton: I greatly respect the hon. Gentleman and his knowledge of these matters. Sir David Henshaw did not make any specific proposals on the treatment of self-employed people, but I have a strong feeling that we shall have to return to that matter when the primary legislation is introduced in the House at the earliest opportunity.

Dennis Skinner: Will the Minister confirm that when the Tory Prime Minister of the day, John Major, introduced the scheme he was at the same time toying with the idea, which he carried through, of the traffic cone hotline? Will he also confirm that we used to have large lobbies of people outside the House of Commons? One day it was against the CSA; I went out the following day and asked the policeman on guard, "Who's this lobby, then?" He said, "This is the police against the CSA." It was at that point that I realised that it was time the agency was scrapped, and my friend Bob Cryer and I voted to scrap it. It is interesting to note that the Liberal leadership were not with us.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I call Mike Weir.

Michael Weir: As a former solicitor, I cannot help feeling that we are going back to the system prior to the CSA. None the less, subject to the details of this step in the right direction, we welcome the statement. We are concerned that there is no automatic transfer to the new agency and fear that there may be pressure to start some cases again from scratch. Will the right hon. Gentleman assure us that there will be no delay in dealing with new cases? Who will decide what is a perfectly satisfactory private arrangement, and will it be as enforceable as an old court decree used to be?

John Hutton: I reassure the hon. Gentleman that we are not returning to the previous CSA arrangement, where exclusive responsibility resided with the courts to recover maintenance. That is definitely not what Sir David is recommending and not what we are proposing today. On maintenance agreements, it will be for the parents to reach their own agreement on what they feel is appropriate in the case of their separation and family situation, but if they cannot reach an agreement or the agreement breaks down, it will be the responsibility under the new arrangements of the CSA to step in and to enforce the agreement according to the proper formula in statute. We are mindful of the need to ensure that there is no abuse of women in particular and of parents with care in those arrangements, but I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for indicating in principle his support for the direction of travel.

Tom Levitt: One or two hon. Members have talked about the new system being deluged, but I do not think that will happen. Those who were failed by the first system and then failed to migrate to the replacement system will think twice before jumping on board any new system until it has had time to prove itself and if by then they are within two or three years of finishing with the CSA, perhaps they will not even apply at all. They want proper, objective assessment and robust enforcement, and once that has been proved over a period of time there will be voluntary transfer from the old system to the new.

John Hutton: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. On his latter point, I can confirm that we want the system to be robust, and we want people to know that the CSA will be a serious enforcer of parental responsibilities. That is not how people view the current arrangements, and it is that fundamental perception, and indeed the reality of the present situation, that we have to change. The proposals will help us to do so.

Justine Greening: Can the Secretary of State confirm that three systems will be used to manage child support payments? As single parents make the depressing choice to go back to square one and reapply under the new system, at what stage will the Government close down the old systems on which so few people are left? Have the Government assessed how many people will choose to go on to the new system and to go back to square one and reapply?

John Hutton: I know that the hon. Lady is a member of the Select Committee but, in fact, there are three systems now in operation: the old scheme, the new scheme, and the hybrid scheme for cases with which the IT cannot cope, so we have to deal with them manually. In future, there will be one scheme, not three, once we make the changes. That will significantly increase people's understanding of the system and its clarity. She asked me for a specific figure, but I cannot give one today; we have to undertake work before the publication of the White Paper, but when we produce it in the autumn, I hope that it will deal specifically with those issues. In the meantime, Sir David Henshaw will continue to work with us to make sure that we get the operational design of the new system right, and I am very grateful to him for that. I hope that she will find the answers that she is looking for in the White Paper.

Mark Todd: May I particularly commend the steps to encourage voluntary agreements between parents? Will my right hon. Friend set out in more detail the measures that he has in mind, including advice and other services for parents? Will he bear in mind, too, the durability of such agreements, in the face of the evidence of fractured relationships, and changed and new relationships that establish completely different household incomes, and that require a complete reassessment?

John Hutton: My hon. Friend makes an important point. Sir David has recommended that the CSA of the future develop more of an advisory and help and support role for couples who are splitting up and for families in those circumstances. It is important for those people to be given proper financial advice. On my hon. Friend's latter point, the way forward that Sir David identified will be partly through the more generous maintenance disregard, which he believes—and I think that he is right—will encourage and incentivise more sustainable and durable financial agreements between separating couples. That is the direction of travel that Sir David believes it is right to follow, and he is absolutely right.

Philip Dunne: I think that members of the Select Committee on both sides of the House are pleased that the Government are finally addressing the crisis in the Child Support Agency. I am concerned about two issues: first, the extent to which the Government failed to address the amount of debt that they must write off for the CSA; and, secondly, the apparent inconsistency between increasing voluntary arrangements—I think that everybody would support that—and the proposal to start charging parents who have to use the new CSA replacement. Aside from the fact that the modest incentive of avoiding a charge might encourage voluntary arrangements—that I can understand—will the Secretary of State explain how parents who are not prepared to accept a voluntary arrangement, and their children, will benefit if the parents are charged to use the service?

John Hutton: I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's overall support. On debt, which I covered in my statement, we would need primary legislation for any debt write-off, and we are still looking into that. In the meantime, we are investing significantly more in the current operation, so that we can use more specialist debt recovery and debt enforcement agencies, mainly in the private sector, to recover more of the debt. That is beginning to produce results. On charging, I am not thinking of charging the mother but the non-resident parent who is failing to comply with the obligation to pay maintenance. It is important that we do not penalise the parent with care in those circumstances. The details of the charging regime will be set out in due course.

Sally Keeble: In the context of his welcome new proposals, can my right hon. Friend say how he foresees new family relationships being dealt with? I have often found that the objections to the CSA proposals and the pursuit of absent fathers come from mothers in a new relationship and the impact that the payments have on the family income.

John Hutton: That is getting us into complicated sets of issues to do with relationships between separating couples and their new families. It is work that will need to be examined in the context of the White Paper. We need to look in particular at Sir David Henshaw's proposals to develop the new advice, guidance and support service for the CSA.

Paul Rowen: The Secretary of State rightly said that the proposals would take time, and in the meantime the law will be enforced. Has he any interim proposals to improve the operational ability of the CSA to ensure that the 300,000 claimants are dealt with much more quickly?

John Hutton: Yes. We published the details of those plans in February and I will happily send a copy to the hon. Gentleman.

Clive Efford: Any of us who have struggled with the CSA will welcome my right hon. Friend's statement. Does he agree that unless we can deal with people who can make a modicum of change in their financial arrangements—that is, if they are self-employed or if they have a sympathetic employer—the enforcement powers included in his statement will not be worth the paper they are written on? May I urge him to test his enforcement powers against some of those cases? If he would like a few case histories, I am prepared to provide some from my constituency. The CSA fell down most in that respect and we must get it right now.

John Hutton: We could probably all add to my hon. Friend's list of cases where we have seen the system fail. We must develop the proposals for primary legislation at the earliest opportunity—in the next Session of Parliament, I hope. My hon. Friend and others will then be able to judge whether the strengthened enforcement powers, which I would very much like to be available to the current CSA ahead of any change, are worth the paper they are written on. I will not waste the time of the House with powers and new enforcement roles that I do not believe will make a ha'p'orth of difference. I believe the new powers will make a difference, and as I said to the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maples) earlier, we must look again at how self-employed people are treated under the current rules.

Jeremy Wright: Notwithstanding the understandable nervousness of the Secretary of State about linking contact and financial support, have the Government recognised the practical advantages of deciding issues of financial support within the same framework as issues of contact and residence when, after all, members of the family are deciding all matters in relation to the future of the family?

John Hutton: That sounds to me like a request that we go back to the courts having primary responsibility for dealing with these matters. I see that the hon. Gentleman is agreeing with me. That is not what Sir David Henshaw is recommending and it is not what the Government believe to be the right way forward. As the hon. Gentleman knows, there are proposals before the House to re-examine the matter of contact orders. That legislation is still progressing, and I am sure he will have the opportunity to make such comments in that regard.

Michael Jabez Foster: I congratulate my right hon. Friend on grasping the nettle and appreciating at last that tinkering with Tory failure will seldom produce an outcome. My constituents who run the CSA in Hastings—the many hundreds there—will be worried, as my colleagues have said. When will my right hon. Friend be able to say what the alternative will be, where it will be carried out and when their jobs can be made secure?

John Hutton: I hope and intend to set out the details of that in the White Paper in the autumn. I have been to Hastings and met many of my hon. Friend's constituents. They are doing a very good job in difficult circumstances. I do not want to add to the difficulties that the agency is experiencing, but we need to spend the next few weeks getting it clear with the staff, the management and others how the new arrangements will work. That will be time well spent, but there will be full and proper consultation with all the relevant trade unions.

Tony Baldry: When parents separate, it is often difficult to come to voluntary agreements because the professional organisations that they go to, such as solicitors, are confrontational, rather than helping them to come to an agreement. Will the Secretary of State consider giving some funding to organisations such as Relate and Citizens Advice to help set up volunteer but trained mediation services to help parents who might want to reach a voluntary agreement at that time to find the mechanism, skills and process by which they could come to such an agreement that would stick?

John Hutton: I am interested in exploring all those options. They are primarily matters for the Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs, but we will need to look at that in more detail as we prepare the White Paper.

Russell Brown: I congratulate my right hon. Friend on making such a bold step forward after so much of a problem, which we have all faced as constituency Members. Given the rigidity of the current system, whereby individuals who work so hard for the CSA basically operate within boxes and anything outwith the parameter of the box is a nightmare for them to cope with, can he assure the House today that the new system will have flexibility, and that common sense will prevail in running the system?

John Hutton: Yes, that is very much what we would like.

Point of Order

Nadine Dorries: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. On 25 July 2005, I wrote to a Minister in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs about an issue that is of great concern to a number of my constituents. Last week, on 19 July, I received a reply. The earth has done a complete orbit of the sun in the time that it has taken for my reply to arrive. I know that as the summer recess is about to begin this is a difficult time to raise this point of order, but would you, Mr. Speaker, use your good offices to explain to Departments how embarrassing it is for Members to have to write repeatedly to constituents to apologise for not having received a reply over such a long period?

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Lady is very lucky that she got a reply. Many hon. Members have told me in points of order that they have not received a reply. I do not know the quality of the hon. Lady's reply, but I hope that it was good.  [Interruption.] The hon. Lady says that it was not. I can tell her that the Leader of the House and I are working closely to try to improve the time that replies to questions take so that Members receive them within a reasonable period. I hope that after the recess things will improve, and that that will help the hon. Lady's constituents.

Orders of the Day

Welfare Reform Bill

[Relevant documents: The Third Report from the Work and Pensions Committee, Session 2005-06, HC 616, on Incapacity Benefits and Pathways to Work, and the Government's response thereto, Cm 6861.]
	 Order for Second Reading read.

John Hutton: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
	The reforms in the Bill set a new direction of travel for our welfare system. They are underpinned by a belief in an active enabling welfare state that sees tackling poverty and social exclusion as its central mission, with no one left behind and no one written off. The Bill therefore marks a major shift away from the established orthodoxy of welfare provision in our country, which has always treated functional limitations as automatically disqualifying people from the world of work. That is based on a flawed analysis of the nature of disability and the rights of disabled people, and it is time we changed it.
	The Bill before us today therefore signals a new approach. It offers new support in return for new obligations for people to help themselves, and it delivers on our manifesto commitment to reform incapacity benefits while ensuring security for those who cannot work. Together with the wider welfare measures set out in our Green Paper, the Bill continues a process of reform that has sought to lock in the right set of values: of universality and opportunity; of security and equity; of fairness and due process— values that stretch back to Beveridge—under which the right to work is fundamental in tackling poverty and building aspiration for everyone in our society.
	When we came to office nearly 6 million people in Britain were dependent on benefits. Between 1979 and 1997 unemployment went up by 50 per cent., and in a world where discrimination already scarred the lives of many disabled people and older workers, the numbers claiming incapacity benefits trebled, while 3 million children were left to live in poverty. I make no apology for reminding the House of those grim and shameful statistics. They set the context for the challenge that we now face, and they teach us valuable lessons about the role of the welfare state in today's society.
	Through the minimum wage and tax credits, we have tried to make work pay, and through record investment in the new deal and Jobcentre Plus we have begun to create an enabling welfare state that tries to respond to the needs of individuals and matches rights with responsibilities.
	Today, as a result, there are more people in work than ever before—2.5 million more than in 1997, with the biggest increases in the neighbourhoods and cities that started in the poorest position. Overall, there are 1 million fewer people on benefits, and 2 million children and 2 million pensioners have been helped to escape the poverty line. As last month's Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development report showed, not only do we have the highest employment rate among the G7 countries but, for the first time in 50 years, we have the lowest combination of unemployment and inactivity rates.
	Of course, there is more that needs doing. The challenge that we face today is how to build a modern welfare state that allows people to exercise their fundamental right to work, when our economy and our society are changing more rapidly than at any time since the industrial revolution. While the pace of such change can seem daunting or even terrifying, the forces that lie behind it, in my view, represent progress, not decline, and they hold out more opportunities than threats. If we can take full advantage of them, they will extend the chance to reduce poverty and social exclusion in our society.
	We must act to meet that challenge, which is why we have set ourselves the aspiration of an 80 per cent. employment rate, with 1 million fewer people receiving incapacity benefits, 1 million more older people in work and an extra 300,000 lone parents off benefit. That is why we are taking forward through secondary legislation the measures in our welfare reform Green Paper to provide more support to lone parents and to break down the barriers experienced by older workers. And that is why we have introduced the Welfare Reform Bill, which will enact crucial elements of the proposals that we set out to the House in January.

Gordon Marsden: My constituency is 15th in the table of constituencies with the highest number of incapacity benefit claimants, so I welcome the attempt to get more people into work. Does my right hon. Friend agree that a key aspect of the process involves changing attitudes among some employers towards the employment of people with disabilities? A written answer in the other place recently stated that 15 per cent. of disabled people of working age who want to work are not in employment, compared with 4 per cent. of the non-disabled working age population. Does my right hon. Friend agree that that must be a key aspect of the welfare reform programme?

John Hutton: I agree that that is true. However, we are making steady progress in bringing to the attention of employers the tremendous pool of skilled labour available among people who are claiming incapacity benefit. It is a mischief and a mistake to assume that if a person is on incapacity benefit they have no skills, talents or opportunities—far from it. I have been tremendously encouraged by the agreements that we have reached with major national employers that are prepared to offer people on incapacity benefit a second chance to return to the labour market. We want to see more such agreements, and we will do everything we can to speed up the process.

Mark Pritchard: How will the Bill help the unemployed in Shropshire? In the past year unemployment in the county has risen by 30 per cent., and it is rising in the west midlands, too. Is it not the case that unemployment is now at a four-year high? How will the Bill help those people?

John Hutton: Unemployment is a lot lower than it used to be, when the Conservative Government were in office. Labour Members remember that unemployment twice reached 3 million under the stewardship of the Conservative party.
	The hon. Gentleman asks what the Bill will do for jobseekers. The Bill primarily focuses on the needs of people who currently have some functional limitation and are unable to work. The thrust of the proposals is to encourage the speedy return of those people to the labour market. Any of the hon. Gentleman's constituents who currently claim incapacity benefit will have access, in the next 18 months to two years, to the pathways to work programme—the first attempt by any Government, Conservative or Labour, to do something practical and positive for people who are out of the labour market because of incapacity and who desperately want to return to it.

Tony Lloyd: My right hon. Friend knows that I support the Bill. Will he accept that this is a unique opportunity to create a new consensus that belies the rather carping intervention by the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard), and which states that we agree about the right to work and the duty to work? It is the Government's role to provide the facilities to allow people to work and to ensure that employers can cope with the extra needs of those who are currently on incapacity benefit and who should be able to work. However, such a consensus will work only if the Opposition parties endorse my right hon. Friend's strategy.

John Hutton: I hope we will see that later. Certainly, it has been indicated so far that Opposition parties broadly support the proposals in the Green Paper.

Sadiq Khan: Not the Liberal Democrats, surely.

John Hutton: I understand that that is in fact the case— [ Interruption. ] I should ask some of my hon. Friends to write my speeches for me, as they would be much more entertaining.

Michael Weir: I am interested in the Minister's comments. I agree about the need to work with employers to get more disabled people back to work. However, one of the things that struck me about the Bill was the lack of any clear idea of how people will be helped once they have obtained a job, rather than in getting a job. Many people, particularly those with mental disabilities, require long-term help after they have been appointed to a job. Can the Minister tell us about his proposals in that regard?

John Hutton: That is precisely what pathways to work currently provides. It is true that the details of that are not spelt out in the Bill, but we recognise the need for the Department and for Jobcentre Plus to provide such ongoing support. In Scotland there are now fewer people claiming incapacity benefit than there were in 1997.

Tom Levitt: Will my right hon. Friend take this opportunity to congratulate the staff of the Glossop and Buxton jobcentres, and others throughout Derbyshire and in the other five pilot areas, on pathways to work? In my area they have vastly exceeded expectations not only in getting back to work many people who were not expected to be in the programme, but also in providing much job satisfaction for jobcentre employees.

John Hutton: I am happy to congratulate those staff. I visited the pathways to work scheme in Derbyshire a few months ago; it has probably been one of the most outstandingly successful examples of how this type of intervention can work. What was significant in Derbyshire, as we heard a few minutes ago, was that cognitive behavioural therapists were directly employed to fast-track the provision of help and support for people with mental health problems, to give them the self-confidence to represent themselves to employers and to secure work—and many have succeeded in doing so. That is a model of what more needs to be done, and what we are keen to extend across the country.

David Marshall: I am grateful that my right hon. Friend took the time to visit Glasgow and see at first hand the terrible problems facing the city. As he knows, my constituency has the highest number of people on incapacity benefit in Great Britain: more than 11,000 of the tragic Glasgow total of 60,000. Is he aware that the working links pilot in Parkhead and the partnership action team for jobs in Glasgow, East have come to an end despite being very successful? Will he consider extending those two projects to work in tandem with his reforms, in order to tackle successfully the most serious problem in my constituency and other constituencies in Glasgow?

John Hutton: My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the problem facing many people in Glasgow who are on incapacity benefit and want the opportunity to work again. I know how actively he is involved with this issue in Glasgow, where, in conjunction with the city council and local employers, a huge amount has been done to move people off incapacity benefit back into employment. Some 11,000 to 12,000 people in Glasgow have been helped to re-enter the labour market over the past few years. That is a great tribute to Jobcentre Plus, local employers and the local authority.
	We took the decision to end action teams and roll up funding into a new deprived areas fund, which will allow access to a similar level of resources to support such initiatives in my hon. Friend's constituency. I am sure that local Jobcentre Plus staff would be happy to explain to him how they are taking that forward.

Sadiq Khan: My right hon. Friend knows that more and more people cite mental health problems as the chief reason for claiming incapacity benefit. Will he confirm that the new personal capability assessment will be more sophisticated, the better to identify people with mental health conditions and tailor the help that they require more effectively?

John Hutton: That is our intention. We have convened several groups involving mental health stakeholders to work with us to design a better, more accurate and fairer assessment of people's mental health problems when they present with a claim for employment and support allowance. It is important to find a way forward. The fact that the current arrangements do not do that properly has been the subject of continuing concern. We are anxious to try to find a way of resolving it.

Geraldine Smith: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the public sector has a huge role to play in helping people get back into work? Indeed, Lancaster city council has been involved in projects for the long-term unemployed. Does he also accept that it is sometimes difficult for private companies, which are small businesses, to employ someone who has, for example, been on incapacity benefit and may require several days off sick because of a genuine illness? That is sometimes one of the biggest barriers to people going back to work. Are there any measures to deal with illness once someone returns to the workplace, and with the need for time off?

John Hutton: That is a genuine problem. However, it does not lend itself to any quick legislative fix. The Bill contains nothing that would directly tackle the concerns that my hon. Friend raises. We have responsibilities in Jobcentre Plus to ensure that we do everything we can to support people with mental health problems in staying active in the labour market. We will continue to discuss with my hon. Friend and others ways in which we might improve on those methods.

Madeleine Moon: Bridgend has been an incredibly successful pathways to work pilot scheme area. Unemployment is 2.6 per cent., with fewer than 1,200 unemployed, but more than 5,000 people are on incapacity benefit. On Friday, my hon. Friend the Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) and I met the mental health matters group from Bridgend. Its members were worried about whether the personal capability assessment recognised that their capacity to cope changes daily. Even a change in medication or moving to a cheaper brand of medication can affect their performance and capacity to attend for interview. Will that be taken into account, and not lead to people losing their right to benefit because of a fluctuation in capacity?

John Hutton: It is important that the personal capability assessment is more than a snapshot. It is especially difficult to craft the assessment as my hon. Friend suggests for those who are mentally ill. We are working hard to try to reach agreement on the best way forward and we will continue to discuss that fully with all the relevant stakeholders. We need employers to co-operate with Jobcentre Plus, and I strongly believe that the evidence shows that they are willing to do that. My hon. Friend referred to pathways to work, which has been another great success in south Wales. I hope that we can build on that.

Mark Francois: I thank the Secretary of State for his courtesy in giving way. Clauses 41 and 42 refer to recovering overpaid benefits. In his statement an hour or so earlier, he announced that the Child Support Agency would no longer be with us. As a critic of that agency for many years, I am pleased that it will finally be buried, even if the funeral is somewhat delayed. We are clearly dealing with some sensitive client groups in recovering those overpayments. Although the taxpayer must be protected, will the Secretary of State give some assurance that his officials will handle those cases sensitively and with appropriate discretion?

John Hutton: Yes, of course.
	Part 1 provides for the new employment and support allowance, which will replace the current system of incapacity benefit. It places additional requirements on new claimants to be actively engaged in preparing for a return to the labour market in return for new support, by embedding the values and principles of the successful pathways to work pilots into the structure of the new benefit. We know the difference that pathways to work can make. In the first year of the pilots, the number of recorded job entries for people with a health condition or disability had increased by approximately two thirds compared with the same period the previous year. The pilots' continued success has driven a significant increase in the proportion of people leaving incapacity benefit in the first six months of their claim, compared with that of non-pilot areas. This early success has underpinned our achievements in helping people off incapacity benefit, with new cases down a third since 1997, and with the first falls in the total count, now down 61,000 in the year to November 2005.

Michael Weir: Will the Secretary of State give way?

John Hutton: Not at the moment.
	At present, nine out of 10 people who come on to incapacity benefit expect to get back into work. Yet as we all know, if they have been on incapacity benefit for more than two years, they are more likely to retire or die than ever to get another job. Little is expected of claimants, and almost no support is offered to them. The gateway to the benefit is poorly managed, and a person gets paid more the longer their claim continues. Even the name of the benefit sends a signal that a person is incapable, and that there is nothing that can be done.
	The Bill seeks to change that. It provides for a transformed medical assessment as the gateway to the new benefit, with an assessment process that for the first time properly looks at a person's potential capability to engage in the labour market, rather than simply measuring the level of their incapacity. It provides for a new benefit system founded on the concept of measuring and building up each individual's capability rather than writing them off as incapable, and a radical extension of the support available, which will be underpinned by the extension of pathways to work to every part of Britain by 2008.
	We are continuing to review the design of the new medical assessment, and we are particularly conscious of how important that process is for people with mental health problems and learning disabilities.

Ann Cryer: The National Audit Office has found that 77 per cent. of cancer patients are not given information about the financial support to which they might well be entitled. Will my right hon. Friend comment on whether Jobcentre Plus staff will now routinely ensure that such advice is given to cancer patients?

John Hutton: We do all we can to bring an entitlement to benefit to the attention of such people, but I will reflect on what my hon. Friend has said and see whether there is anything more that we can do. We are not in the business of giving advice, but it is our responsibility to ensure that people are at least aware of the various entitlements that might be available to them.

John Robertson: I know that my right hon. Friend is coming to an important part of his speech. Many people who have been long-term recipients of incapacity benefit have received doctors' lines time after time without any form of investigation into their illness. Will my right hon. Friend assure me that the new system will ensure that that can no longer happen?

John Hutton: Yes, I can give my hon. Friend that assurance. It will be important that, apart from having access to the support group, people have a regular face-to-face medical examination of their condition, so that we are able to provide them with the right measure of help and support that they need. This is a failure of the present system. I know that there are some of my own constituents who have not seen anyone for some considerable time, and that is not an acceptable way to run our welfare state.
	My hon. Friend said that I was coming to an important part of my speech. I am not sure how he knew that, but I have been trying to get to it for quite a while. I would like to remind people of what I was saying about the design of the new personal capabilities assessment. We have created review groups, involving both technical and stakeholder experts, to look at the mental health and physical components of the assessment. We intend to complete this work by September so that we can provide a clear view of the new assessment during the Bill's Committee stage.
	The new personal capability assessment will identify those who are capable of undertaking work-related activity and the support and interventions that will be necessary to help them get back to work. It will identify separately people who are so limited by their illness or disability that it would be unreasonable to require them to undertake any form of work-related activity.

Angela Browning: I notice that on several occasions the Secretary of State has referred to getting people back into work. Will some of the proposals that he is spelling out today also apply to people who have never enjoyed paid employment? They include people with learning disabilities, autism or mental health problems, who might well be in their 20s or 30s, and who would like to work but have no previous experience of doing so.

John Hutton: It was my mistake not to have made that clear. I agree absolutely with what the hon. Lady says. We want opportunities to be more widely shared than they are at the moment, and that will include people who have never been active in the labour market. Such people will not be excluded from any of the help and support packages that we are seeking to make available through pathways to work.
	I recognise the sensitivity and importance of getting such a crucial distinction right. That is why we are consulting all our stakeholders carefully, to ensure that we take an equitable approach. The group that I have just described, known as the "support" group, will receive the new benefit at a higher rate. As now, they will be able to volunteer to participate in work-related activity and access all the appropriate support available, but it will not be a condition of their entitlement to any part of their benefit.
	For the vast majority—those who are not in the "support" group—the new benefit will have a clear framework of rights and responsibilities. In return for the additional support provided by the national roll-out of pathways to work, claimants will be required to attend regular interviews, complete action plans and, in time and when resources permit, undertake work-related activity. As the Green Paper makes clear, the full level of benefit that they receive will be above the current long-term rate of incapacity benefit. However, those refusing to engage with the help and support offered, without good cause, could see their benefit reduced progressively to the basic level of jobseeker's allowance.
	I want to return to the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mrs. Moon) a moment ago, which I did not deal with. She asked how we would approach the issue in relation to people who have a mental health problem, and who might, for a perfectly good reason, not have been able to attend, for example, a work-focused interview. At the moment, we would never dream of sanctioning in those cases, unless there had been a home visit, and until decision makers in Jobcentre Plus were absolutely sure that the person had no plausible reason for missing the work-focused interview. With all such matters—I shall make this point later, as I know that Members on both sides of the House will be concerned about benefit sanctions—the success of the policy is not to be judged by how many people we sanction, but the reverse. It will be judged by how many people we can help to get into work, whether for the first time or following on from an earlier career. As we established in relation to the new deal, if we are going to provide new help and support, it is essential to have some reciprocity in the provision of that additional investment in our welfare state. The vast majority of people, I hope, will have no difficulty with that argument.

Joan Humble: I want to explore a little further the issue of work-focused interviews and people with mental health problems. I am pleased by the reply that my right hon. Friend has given to my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mrs. Moon). In order to reassure those who have genuine fears, what steps will he take to ensure that his staff are properly trained to identify when someone's mental health problem is so severe that it would be adversely affected by being required to attend a work-focused interview?

John Hutton: I accept that there is fear about all these issues, and it is important that we dispel those fears. There is no reason for people to be fearful. We invest significantly in the training of personal advisers in Jobcentre Plus. Through pathways, we have been doing this for the best part of two years, and we are beginning to find a sensible way forward. I do not doubt that there are areas for improvement, and Jobcentre Plus is always ready and willing to learn. If there is a role for some of the voluntary organisations to help us to train our staff properly, we should explore that further. We are making progress. It is not our intention to be punitive as we develop these approaches; that would be wrong. As I have tried to say previously, we can be radical, which I believe that these reforms are, without being punitive. I hope that my hon. Friend does not infer from anything that I have said today, or anything in the Green Paper, that we will punish people unfairly because they have a level of incapacity. That would be totally at odds with the values to which I referred earlier, and forms no part of the approach that we want to develop.

Russell Brown: I welcome the Bill, which, as far as I can see, is based more on people's abilities than on their disabilities. In relation to work-focused interviews and pathways to work, may I impress on my right hon. Friend that in rural constituencies such as mine, which has two Jobcentre Plus offices 75 miles apart, the difficulty of delivering what I hope will be delivered is much greater?

John Hutton: I absolutely accept that. That is why, wherever possible, we try to take our services out to our customers. I do not know the precise details of the issue raised by my hon. Friend, but he would be welcome to raise it with me in more detail on another occasion.

Roger Berry: I support the Bill, and hope that I shall have an opportunity to explain why.
	Given that the proposals relating to work-related activity depend heavily on the use of private and voluntary-sector providers, can my right hon. Friend assure us that decisions on sanctions will be made not by those providers but by Jobcentre Plus?

John Hutton: That is certainly the current arrangement, but, as my hon. Friend will know—I suspect that that is why he asked the question—clause 15 allows the possibility of benefit sanction decisions being made by some of our private and voluntary-sector providers. I shall come to that section of my speech shortly, but let me say first that a number of providers have told us that they would like to have those powers. I agree that not all them may want the powers, and I quite understand why, but it is worth exploring the issue a bit further.
	I consider the additional obligations to be central to the reform package that we are proposing. As I said earlier, I believe that the vast majority of people will consider them to be reasonable and necessary. They are very much powers of last resort. As with any such measures, the proof of their success will come not in large numbers of cases in which the sanction is imposed, but in the number of people whom we can return to employment and, therefore, lift from poverty. In the current pathways areas where extra conditions have been imposed, the benefits of fewer than 1 per cent. of claimants have been sanctioned. That is a mark of the success of the deal that we have offered people on incapacity benefit.
	I know that some have expressed concern—as my hon. Friend just did—about clause 15, which permits the application of employment and support allowance benefit sanctions by private and voluntary-sector providers. I can reassure the House and my hon. Friend that a clear system of safeguards, similar to that used in pathways, will be used before any such sanction can be applied, and that the normal rights of appeal will be fully applicable. We will talk to private and voluntary-sector providers about whether they wish to exercise the function, but I think it is important for us to explore whether the new power will be helpful as we engage with a wider range of welfare-to-work providers in the years ahead. We will invest a further £360 million over the next two years to support the measures in the Green Paper, and to secure national coverage of pathways to work.

David Laws: Will the Secretary of State clarify what aspect of non-compliance the private and voluntary-sector providers might sanction? Might it relate to participation at an interview, taking up employment opportunities, or obtaining medical assistance?

John Hutton: No sanctions would apply to health care provision. I think it would be entirely wrong to apply sanctions to how an adult decides to obtain health care. Nor would sanctions apply to the job-seeking that the hon. Gentleman describes, because that is not part of work-related activity planning. Essentially, we are talking about work-related activity when it becomes a mandatory condition for benefit—if it does—along with work focus interviews and the drawing up of action plans. Only in those areas could benefit sanctions apply.
	Working with our partners in the private and voluntary sector will be a critical part of our building of a modern, active and increasingly devolved welfare state which makes more use of a wider range of providers with the skills and expertise to target local labour market issues more successfully. I said a few moments ago that a modern welfare state could not afford to leave anyone behind, and should not seek to do so. That is why we will roll out our offer of help and support for existing claimants of incapacity benefits—available on a voluntary basis—as pathways spread nationwide. In Somerset, for example, we are already piloting a regular set of work-focused interviews for all existing customers as part of pathways, and if that approach works, we will seek to expand it further as resources allow.
	In time, as provided for by schedule 4, existing claimants will be "migrated" to the new employment and support allowance. That will help to reduce the complexity involved in having two completely separate administration systems running indefinitely. I want to make one thing clear, however: existing claimants will not be mandated to undertake work-related activity as a condition of receiving the full amount of the new benefit. Clause 12 gives us the necessary power to require ESA claimants to undertake work-related activity, but we will ensure that the regulations made under the clause reflect the position that we set out in the Green Paper in relation to existing incapacity benefit claimants. As the Green Paper also made clear, the current benefit level of existing claimants will be fully protected.

Angela Browning: What is the position of people who are still receiving the old severe disablement allowance, which preceded incapacity benefit? Will those whose claims show that they still have SDA status be brought within the incapacity benefit loop, or will they be treated as a separate group?

John Hutton: That is a very good question and I wish that I had the exact answer to it right now, but I will ensure that my hon. Friend the Minister for Employment and Welfare Reform deals with it in his winding-up speech.
	Following consultation on the Green Paper, we made two substantial changes to our proposals. First, we listened carefully to concerns that the adoption of jobseeker's allowance rates in the employment and support allowance would penalise disabled young people. It was never our intention to discriminate against young disabled people and we decided that young people will now get the same basic allowance as everyone else in the main phase of the ESA.
	Secondly, there were strong concerns from employers over our proposals to simplify statutory sick pay. Our intention was to simplify the process of administering the scheme while maintaining the crucial balance between helping to keep costs down and retaining protection for the most vulnerable employees. Employers felt that the simplicity they would gain from these changes was not sufficient to outweigh the loss of flexibility that waiting days gave them, so we decided not to proceed with those proposals at that point. We will instead invite all interested stakeholders to discuss with us the scope for alternative approaches to simplification, which must not, however, involve unreasonable costs to employers.

Danny Alexander: In his answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr. Laws), the Secretary of State suggested that conditionality would not apply in respect of medical activities. Will he confirm that the conditionality in the Bill can apply to the work-focused, health-related assessments that are proposed in clause 10?

John Hutton: Yes, but it will not and we will make sure of that in the regulations.
	Part 2 takes forward our Green Paper proposals to simplify the existing housing benefit system to improve work incentives and encourage personal responsibility for housing choices. Following the success of the 18 pathfinder areas, the Bill will facilitate the extension of local housing allowance across the deregulated private rented sector. Where possible, to promote personal responsibility among tenants, we propose that payments of housing benefit will be made to the tenant, rather than the landlord, but appropriate safeguards will be in place to protect both tenants and landlords so that in cases where tenants are likely to have difficulty in managing their affairs, payments can still be made to the landlord.

Andrew Love: My right hon. Friend rightly points to the success of the 18 pathfinder areas. One reason for their success is the enhanced money advice provided in those areas, so will he give us an assurance that such an enhanced money advice service will be available on the roll-out nationwide?

John Hutton: Yes, we will certainly want to do that and it will feature in subsequent debate and the Minister for Employment and Welfare Reform will comment further at the end. He is going to have to make a longer speech than he anticipated, but there we are.
	The Bill also provides for a reduction in housing benefit where someone has been evicted from their home on grounds of antisocial behaviour and refuses to co-operate with the support that is offered by the local authority to help improve behaviour. There is clear research evidence that the provision of intensive support and supervision can achieve significant changes in the behaviour of persistently antisocial households.
	An active welfare state, with rights and responsibilities at its heart, must send a clear signal to those evicted for antisocial behaviour that they are at the end of the line and cannot simply expect to move to another property and continue their bad behaviour at the expense of decent hard-working families. That would serve only to undermine public confidence in our welfare system and if we are right to expect minimum standards in other areas of the welfare state—I believe that we are—we should be consistent across the whole system, including housing benefit.
	We intend to pilot the sanction in about 10 English local authorities over a two-year-period as soon as we have the legal power to do so. Proper consideration will be given to the needs of any children involved in such cases, but we cannot go on turning our back on those who have to put up with that kind of behaviour and who rightly look to us to deal with the problem. The Bill makes a start in the right direction in this sphere.

Terry Rooney: My right hon. Friend knows that I have some doubts, but if people in rented accommodation suffer from that penalty, should it not also apply to those who receive state support for mortgage interest payments? If guilty of similar antisocial behaviour, should not those people be subject to a similar regime?

John Hutton: As my hon. Friend knows, that is not in the Bill, but if he raised that matter again in Committee or on Report, I am sure that we would reflect carefully on any arguments that he deployed.
	Those responding to the Green Paper consultation expressed concerns about introducing local housing allowance for tenants in social housing. We recognise those concerns, and we have therefore decided not to introduce such legislation at the moment.
	Part 3 proposes a number of measures to improve the administration of social security, including new powers to allow greater sharing of information to improve the take-up and delivery of benefits and other services administered by my Department and by local authorities. For example, where pensioners are entitled to both pension credit and council tax benefit or housing benefit, common information on personal and financial circumstances will only need to be given once.

Madeleine Moon: Can my right hon. Friend explain who will decide whether an individual should receive personal payments of their rent allowance? There is great concern among professionals working in the health and social care sectors that families with children will find themselves in debt, as their benefit will be paid into overdrawn bank accounts, the banks will use it to pay off bank arrears and it will never reach the landlord. Can he explain how we can ensure that people are not forced into further debt under that proposal?

John Hutton: I can just point to the research and the outcomes in the pathfinder areas, and my hon. Friend might want to study them. We have seen no correlation between the direct payment of the local housing allowance in those areas and any difficulty that those tenants have in paying their rent. There has been no increase in arrears and no problem with landlords then seeking to evict tenants. As a general principle, it is right to treat adults as adults and for the payment of rent to go directly to them.
	There are safeguards, however, and in the pathfinder areas—we have been very clear about this—about 15 per cent. of those who are eligible for local housing allowance have not received it directly, because they felt that they were at risk of not paying up. There are problems, for example, if someone has a drug or alcohol dependency. We certainly do not want to make matters worse in those cases. There is a sensible way to deal with those concerns that does not undermine the fundamental principle—this must be right in the welfare state—that we should treat people in the benefits system as adults. We manage money; they are perfectly capable of managing money, too, and we should not start with any assumption that they cannot do so.

Kali Mountford: My right hon. Friend is describing a new system that will bring together those in different parts of the civil service who did not work so closely together previously, along with other sectors. May I tell him that my discussions with people inside Jobcentre Plus suggest that that is causing them some concern. They need to learn lessons from the past. They are also concerned about the target that has been set of benefiting 1 million people's lives. The assessment that others have made that that target is not too challenging does not fit with their concerns about the new system.

John Hutton: We will have plenty of opportunities to listen to those concerns and to act on them where we think that that is the right thing to do. I think that my hon. Friend is referring to the aspiration—the objective—of getting 1 million people off incapacity benefit. That is the right objective for us to have. We are investing significantly more in the help and support available to people who have a measure of incapacity. They and the organisations that represent disabled people have made very clear to us the importance that they attach to extending what my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Central (Tony Lloyd), who is no longer present, referred to as the right to work. That is the right and proper thing for us to do, but I am quite sure that the debate about how we implement these reforms will continue inside and outside Jobcentre Plus, and we are certainly more than willing to listen to what people are telling us about them.

Gordon Marsden: I want to touch on the 1 million target, which, although ambitious, should be put in front of us. However, does my right hon. Friend agree that it is extremely important—particularly in a constituency such as mine, where many of the target people on IB might have been in that position for five or 10 years—to focus on an element of job progression if we are successful in getting them into work, so that they do not think that they are coming into work at a relatively low level, without aspirations and skills or the training that they need to develop them thereafter?

John Hutton: I absolutely agree with that, and some of the issues to which my hon. Friend refers will be picked up by Lord Leitch, when he reports to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor on how and to what extent we can do more to support the skills of the labour force. However, I agree with my hon. Friend fundamentally: we are here to help, and we will be long-term partners in incapacity benefit reform. We have a role to play in supporting people not just to get a job, but to make progress up the labour-market ladder as well. I agree with him that that is very important.

Lyn Brown: Given that 60 per cent. of people come off incapacity benefit within the first year, is it realistic to assume that we can take 1 million people off it? If we are basing that estimate on pathways to work figures, how can we be sure that the 8 per cent. of people in respect of pathways to work are not also included in the 60 per cent. of people who would normally naturally come off incapacity benefit in the first year?

John Hutton: In pathways areas, access to help and support has not been confined to new claimants; in some parts of the country, the entire stock is being looked at, and in others the pathways are looking back five, six, seven or eight years. I believe that we should set ourselves difficult targets. If a Government set themselves a target that they know they can reach, that is easy; and it is worse to set a target in respect of which we can torture the data until they confess and tell us that we have met it. There should be a genuinely objective measurement of our progress, but if we are to make a difference to the lives of disabled people, it is right and proper that we aim high, not low.

Sammy Wilson: We broadly support these measures, but may I take the Secretary of State back to what he said about withdrawing benefits from those who were engaged in antisocial behaviour? Perhaps he did not mean to do so, but he seemed to gloss over the point about what happens in cases involving families with children and where homelessness might result. I think that his answer to that was that the interests of children would be taken into consideration. Will the Secretary of State spell out exactly what he meant by that? Will this sanction not be imposed on families with children, or else in what other ways will the interests of children be looked after?

John Hutton: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his signal of support for the package of measures. In relation to children and the housing benefit sanction, we must remember that housing benefit is administered by local authorities. We intend to give the decision maker—the local authority—an area of discretion in cases involving families with vulnerable children. We do not envisage the full sanction applying in such cases but, for the reasons to which I referred, it is important that a line is drawn. We as a society, and we as law makers in this House, should send out a clear signal that we are no longer prepared to ignore the antisocial behaviour of the small number of people—it is a very small number—who continue to flout any proper standards of social behaviour to their neighbours, and who expect their neighbours, through their taxes and income, to support their lifestyle. However, it will of course be necessary when there are competing considerations—when there is not just a single person or a couple with no children—to take into account the innocent children who are wrapped up in such cases, and we will of course make sure that there is no question whatever of families with children being turfed out into the street.

Katy Clark: Does my right hon. Friend agree that there seems to be a direct relationship between levels of employment and the number of people on incapacity benefit? Between 1979 and 1997, the number of people on incapacity benefit trebled, and that was accompanied by huge levels of unemployment. The current Government have made huge strides in this area; 2.4 million more people are in work, and employment in my constituency has increased by 25 per cent. But in areas such as mine, we still have a long way to go in respect of securing full employment. Therefore, does my right hon. Friend agree that we must be realistic in respect of targets, and recognise that they will be reached only as our policies for employment are put in place?

John Hutton: That is obviously true, but we should be confident that we will succeed in meeting the ambitious target that we have set ourselves. The economy and the labour market are strong. Employment opportunities clearly exist, and they are continuing to grow. More people are in work this year than when we came into office, and the numbers are still increasing. Under the stewardship of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor, those of us on the Labour Benches are entitled to be confident about our economy developing in the right way.

Geraldine Smith: I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the measures to deal with antisocial behaviour. Let me give him an example of such behaviour. In Morecambe last night, I was called to a house at 10.30 pm to witness extremely loud music that was being played by people in flats across the road—I suspect that those people claim benefit. I was told that they continue to play their music until 3 o'clock in the morning and drink alcohol outside. Of course, those people might not have to get up for work the next morning, but several people in the street do. This is a considerable problem, so the Secretary of State is right to look at measures to deal with people on benefit who are committing antisocial behaviour.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Before the Secretary of State answers, I should say that interventions are getting longer and longer. An awful lot of people who are seeking to catch my eye are sitting waiting very patiently. It is not for me to curtail debate, but I just mention that fact.

John Hutton: I shall try to speed up, as well, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Geraldine Smith) speaks for many Members of this House, and we all have those problems to deal with in our constituencies. We need to be fair to people—as, of course, we will be—and there will be a due process that can be followed, but I do not think that the vast majority of law-abiding, decent people find it acceptable to continue with the current system, under which people can behave in the way that my hon. Friend describes with total impunity. Just as we have other measures across the benefit system that require a reasonable response from people on benefits, we should have one here, and I am grateful for my hon. Friend's support for this measure.

Joan Walley: Will the Secretary of State give way?

John Hutton: I shall give way once more but not again, because I need to get on.

Joan Walley: I am most grateful. May I take the Secretary of State back to the issue referred to a couple of interventions ago—areas in which many people are on incapacity benefit? Will he work with colleagues to develop a joined-up approach to this issue, and try to find opportunities to link the relocation of Government Departments under the Lyons review to areas such as Stoke-on-Trent, in which we need to create even more jobs?

John Hutton: My hon. Friend has made a very important point and I look forward to working with her to ensure that those benefits are realised, particularly in her constituency.
	I now have the answer to the question that the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Angela Browning) asked about the severe disablement premium: people in receipt of it can volunteer for pathways. I am grateful to her and to my hon. Friends for their interventions; it is because there have been so many of them that I have now been able to deal with the hon. Lady's point.
	The Bill contains provisions dealing with fraud, and we have decided to go further in this area. Given that some 50 per cent. of fraud against a local benefit also involves fraud against a national benefit, it is crucial that we lift the restrictions that prevent up to 2,000 local authority investigators from tackling the full extent of the benefit fraud that they encounter. Clauses 43 to 45 address those concerns.
	Rights and responsibilities lie at the heart of this Bill, and nowhere is the abuse of those responsibilities more blatant than in benefit fraud. Clause 46 will extend the "two strikes" rule for repeat offences, so that people who commit a second benefit offence within five years of their first one can have their benefit withdrawn.
	Part 4 of the Bill contains a number of smaller but important measures to correct anomalies in the—

Michael Clapham: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way. I draw to his attention clause 55, schedule 6 and the reference to pneumoconiosis. Under the schedule, a claim made more than 20 years after a period of employment ended will be disregarded. In effect, that will mean that very few pneumoconiosis-related claims will be made under the Pneumoconiosis etc. (Workers' Compensation) Act 1979. As he will be aware, provision for bringing a claim under that Act came in when British Coal ceased to exist, in 2004, but because of the way in which the schedule is drafted, it will not be possible to make such a claim. I ask the Secretary of State to reflect on that, and to see whether we can consider the nature of the disease in deciding whether a claim is proceeded with.

John Hutton: My hon. Friend has a great deal of experience in this area and I have a great deal of respect for his view, but I think that he is wrong about the effect of clause 55 and schedule 6. We are trying to incorporate a more practical version of the relevant employer condition, which officials have been applying since 1980 on an extra-statutory basis, and to update the 1979 Act to reflect modern partnership rights by providing for civil partners. We are not trying to restrict access to the scheme at all; far from it. We are trying to put on to a statutory footing and basis the current rules that are being applied. The Minister for Employment and Welfare Reform and I would be very happy to pursue this conversation with my hon. Friend later, but I can assure him and the House that there is no suggestion that we are trying to restrict access to the scheme.
	Part 4 of the Bill, which my hon. Friend has read, as I am sure others have—it is fantastic—contains a number of quite important provisions. In addition to provisions relating to pneumoconiosis, there are provisions to ensure that disability living allowance recipients around the age of 16 do not lose up to three months of benefit entitlement, which there is a risk that they might do at the moment, and to simplify the operation of the budgeting loans scheme.
	With the Bill, we can harness the power of modern advances in health and employment support, and foster a society of genuine equal rights and opportunities for everyone. We can help families lift themselves out of dependency, tackle child poverty and build a lasting legacy for millions of our fellow citizens. We can deliver an active welfare state that does not simply cushion people from the effects of poverty and unemployment, but which instead seeks to tackle those issues at source. The Bill begins the next stage of our reforms to our welfare state. I believe that it enshrines the proper balance between rights and responsibilities. It reflects the values of opportunity and security. It has been built on the foundation of a broad and wide consensus. It is the right way forward if we are to succeed in tackling the poverty and social exclusion that still blights the lives of so many disabled people. I commend the Bill to the House.

Philip Hammond: As the Secretary of State knows, we are generally supportive of the overall structure that was put forward in the Green Paper proposals and of which the Bill is an integral part. In the three key areas—incapacity and sickness benefit; getting lone parents into work; and getting older people into the workplace, or enabling them to remain in the workplace—we agree that there is a need for change in order to contribute to the Government's target of 80 per cent. working age participation in the work force. It is essential to achieve that target in the face of a rising dependency ratio. I agree with the Secretary of State that we cannot afford to leave anyone behind in 21st-century Britain, so we are broadly supportive of the proposals that we are considering today, but I hope that he will understand that, within that broad support, there are a number of things that we want to question and matters that we want to raise.
	Welfare reform has been on the Prime Minister's "to do" list since 1997. It struck me that there is a remarkable similarity between the language of the 1998 Green Paper and that of the 2006 Green Paper, which the Secretary of State published earlier this year. The 1998 Green Paper states:
	"People who could work are too often consigned to a life on benefits; those who satisfy the...Test for incapacity benefits are effectively written off and given no help to make the most of their potential."
	Many Labour Members may think that the right hon. Member for Barking (Margaret Hodge) went a little far when she said that Labour had done "sweet nothing" to tackle incapacity benefit since 1997, but it is clear that, despite the Welfare Reform and Pensions Act 1999, many of the aspirations in the 1998 Green Paper remain unfulfilled—hence the repetition of some of the language in this year's Green Paper and many of the key elements of the Bill.
	Of course, the Bill and the accompanying notes leave a number of questions unanswered. That is partly an inevitable consequence of the structure of the Bill. It is very much a framework and I welcome the confirmation that the Minister for Employment and Welfare Reform was able to give at departmental questions last week that draft regulations will be made available to the Committee before consideration of the relevant parts of the Bill.
	Part 1, as the Secretary of State has said, introduces the new employment and support allowance and the arrangements around it, which are inextricably linked to the recently announced roll-out of the pathways to work programme, which will support the measures in the Bill. We agree that a degree of compulsion in the employment and support allowance regime is appropriate, provided that adequate support is in place, especially for people with disabilities. Many people who have been out of the workplace for a long time will lack the self-confidence that they might otherwise have and will need firm encouragement to re-engage in work.
	The first point on which I seek clarification relates to the baseline for the Secretary of State's announced target. The Government set out a target of a reduction of 1 million in the number of people on incapacity benefit. In its report, the Select Committee was critical of the lack of detailed baseline information and the Government have subsequently published that information. It shows that in any case—with no additional action whatsoever—it is expected that there will be a 360,000 drop in the number of people on incapacity benefit by 2014-15. That is thus the baseline number, without any of the measures in the Bill or the extended roll-out of pathways to work. Just so that we are clear about the backdrop against which we are conducting the debate, the target for the new regime is to deliver not a reduction of 1 million in incapacity benefit numbers compared with the existing baseline projection, but a 640,000 reduction. When the Secretary of State told the Select Committee that 1 million was "a net figure" and not a
	"clever statistical sleight of hand",
	he was right, because including 360,000 people who are already in the baseline as part of the net figure is a rather crude statistical sleight of hand. I hope that we are all clear that we are talking about a reduction of not 1 million, but 640,000.

Hugh Bayley: May I respectfully remind the hon. Gentleman that when his party was in power, the number of people on long-term sickness benefits rose from 600,000 to 2.4 million? He criticised the Government a moment ago for not doing enough to reduce the numbers on incapacity benefit. His figures suggest that about a third of a million people will come off the benefit as a result of measures that have already been taken, but I think that he would agree, having repudiated the policies of the past, that more needs to be done, which is surely what the Bill is about. Can he not support it?

Philip Hammond: The hon. Gentleman obviously was not listening. I said at the outset that we supported the package of measures. However, if we are to have these debates, it is important that we understand the parameters. When a target is announced against which we will measure the success of a package, we should be clear about what that target is. I hope that we are all now clear about the target.
	At the time of the publication of the Green Paper, we and the Select Committee expressed concern that existing claimants should not be written off in the process. The regulatory impact assessment that accompanies the Bill says:
	"It is clear that to reduce the caseload our strategy must focus on improving the rate at which people leave incapacity benefits."
	Conservative Members strongly agree with that statement, but much of the focus of the package is actually on tightening the gateway on to benefit. The Select Committee has expressed the concern that existing claimants are in danger of being left behind.
	It seems to me that there is a wide consensus in the House in support of measures that will help people back into work because that is the best and most effective way of tackling poverty and social exclusion. However, if we all agree on the value of the programme, we cannot accept that those who were specifically referred to and offered hope as long ago as the publication of the 1998 Green Paper should be left behind. The reduction in numbers must therefore represent a genuine increase in off-flow as well as a reduction in the numbers of new claimants. I urge the Minister to give in his winding-up speech a commitment to providing disaggregated targets for those two components of the total reduction to which the Government are committed.
	We also need to understand the Government's thinking about the migration of existing claimants. It has come out during our extensive debate so far that provisions in schedule 4 will allow the migration of existing claimants on to the new system. However, as is consistent with the broad architecture of the Bill, schedule 4 contains largely regulation-making powers. It would therefore be helpful to understand how and when existing claimants will become subject to the new regime.
	We understand that the Government's original intention was that existing claimants would remain on the old incapacity benefit, with work-focused interviews being gradually rolled out. The Secretary of State has now made it clear that there will be a migration process, but, if I have understood it correctly, with existing benefit levels protected. Will the Minister of State be clear, either when he winds up the debate or in an intervention, about what that means? If an existing claimant goes for a new reformed personal capability assessment test and fails it, he would presumably be obliged to claim jobseeker's allowance, but if benefit levels are to be protected, he would get JSA but at the rate of his former incapacity benefit. Is that correct? Would the JSA come with the usual conditionality—the actively seeking work and available for work tests? We need to understand how the proposals would work in practice.
	All the Government announcements and publications that I have seen give the impression that eventually everyone will be included in the system and eventually there will be a requirement to engage in work-related activity, rather than just to complete an action plan and then not necessarily act on it. However, the Government continually enter the caveat "as resources allow". The Secretary of State made it clear that there can be no further roll-out of the programmes until after the comprehensive spending review.
	We agree that it is right to extend the compulsion elements of the programme only when the necessary support is in place and available, but we are talking about a programme that is intended to deliver huge savings—billions of pounds of savings—to the Exchequer. The Government's analysis, such as it is, says that there is an 8 per cent. increase in off-flow in the pathways pilot areas and that the scheme is very much more than self-financing. The Minister of State said in a press release, I think, last week that the average cost on a pathways programme was £800 and the average saving was about £8,000. So talk about being unable to roll out the programme because of resource constraints does not ring true, or at the very least it betrays a desperate lack of financial imagination.
	The Green Paper says that pathways will be rolled out in new areas by the private and voluntary sectors, paid for by results and in a way that allows
	"new and innovative approaches to be tested."
	The announced roll-out will use private and voluntary sector providers, but on a much-diluted basis compared with what the Green Paper envisaged. They will not conduct the roll-out in all new areas, they will not be paid wholly by results, and the roll-out will be with a degree of prescription that, frankly, will stifle the most innovative in their ambitions for those programmes. It is almost as if the proposal for roll-out with the private and voluntary sectors has been designed not to maximise the potential benefits that could be squeezed out of using them.
	I have a number of different points to suggest to the Minister. There is not enough transfer of risk in what is being proposed.

John Hutton: I was not planning to intervene, but the hon. Gentleman's concerns about the roll-out of pathways through the private and voluntary sectors are fundamentally misplaced. We will shortly discuss with the potential new providers of pathways our proposals for how we want the roll-out to proceed. It will certainly not remove the opportunity for innovation, development and flexibility. We want to pursue, and rightly so, the best possible value for money for the taxpayer. If he is prepared to wait a bit longer, he will see from the documentation, which he has asked for and which I am happy for him to see, confirmation that his fears are misplaced.

Philip Hammond: I am grateful to the Secretary of State and I am encouraged by the fact that he does not intend to hamper the innovation that the private and voluntary sectors can deliver. However, I have talked to private and voluntary sector providers at some length over the past few days. Perhaps he will allow me to set out my concerns and intervene again if he wants to. I would be more than happy if, after the next three or four minutes, I was able to say that he had dealt with all my concerns.
	The transfer of risk seems a fundamental part of the purpose of engaging the private sector in such a programme. Payment by results was promised, but we understand that a 30 per cent. up-front payment of the fee is now proposed. A payment of 30 per cent. of the fee up front is precisely what creates the resource constraint which is constantly referred to as a reason for not rolling out the programmes more quickly. Why not utilise the private and voluntary sectors' appetite for risk? Why not roll out the migration of existing claimants and the work-related activity element via private and voluntary sector providers on a genuine no win, no fee basis, with a fee structure that maximises the incentive of the private and voluntary sectors to reach those furthest from being work-ready and that is cash-neutral to the Treasury—paying them only when they have not only placed someone in work but maintained them in work long enough to produce a stream of benefit savings that will cover the fee that they are to be paid?

Kali Mountford: I am listening carefully to the hon. Gentleman's remarks, having talked to the private and voluntary sectors myself. They have concerns because they sometimes take a great deal more risk, as their client groups are much more difficult to reach and to place in work. When talking to me they have been concerned about whether they would be able to sustain participation if there were no payments up front in order to enable them to deliver a service.

Philip Hammond: I would be happy to swap notes with the hon. Lady after the debate, but some of the larger providers to which I have talked, in both the voluntary and the private sectors—the not-for-profit sector—assure me that they can deliver such a programme. We all agree that we have an excellent programme—there is consensus that the roll-out of the programme is a good thing—but what bothers us on the Opposition Benches is that we are hearing that, because of resource constraints, neither the migration of existing claimants nor the work-related activity requirements can be rolled out any faster. For perfectly good and understandable reasons, the Treasury is not prepared to invest large amounts of money up front on the Secretary of State's promise that there will be a saving at some time in the future. I am suggesting that the private and voluntary sectors can deliver some real benefit; they can do something that no Government Department can do. They can take on the risk on their balance sheets and allow the removal of the resource constraint in order to roll out the programmes more quickly.

Anne Begg: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that resources are not just money and not necessarily merely Government money? I agree that the not-for-profit sector and some private sector providers are very good, but there are capacity problems, particularly concerning trained people such as cognitive behaviour therapists who deal with those with mental health problems. We cannot magic such people out of the air, and it is in those professions that some of the resource constraints lie.

Philip Hammond: What the hon. Lady says is self-evidently true. There are real as well as financial constraints, but we can deal with one of the largest constraints—the financial resource constraint. I suggest to the Secretary of State that it can be done. The resource constraints boil down to a lack of imagination—I will not say in the Secretary of State's Department; it might be in the Treasury or elsewhere—rather than a lack of cash. The benefits of the programme could be made more widely available more quickly through such a transfer of risk. As the Secretary of State knows, a faster roll-out will produce medium-term fiscal savings as well as greater economic and social benefits in the short term.

Michael Weir: I am interested in what the hon. Gentleman has to say. Many voluntary sector providers, especially those who deal with more difficult cases such as people with autism and other learning difficulties, feel that they will be pushed out of the market because they are niche providers. How will his system deal with that problem?

Philip Hammond: The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point, and he is right that some of the smaller, more specialist providers fear that the model that the Government are rolling out, in which there is a single provider in an area, will squeeze them out of any chance of a role as a prime provider. I think that there will be a consolidation, whereby specialist and smaller providers act as sub-contractors in consortium arrangements with larger, perhaps financially stronger, lead providers.

Angela Browning: On the issue of sub-contracting to so-called niche or specialist providers, at the moment, the system—and I cannot picture it changing, unless the Minister tells me otherwise—is that large contracts are issued, and are top-sliced by the companies or organisations that win them. When they then sub-contract in a specialism in which there are, of necessity, higher per capita costs if they are to deliver, they make it uneconomic for those specialist providers to play a part in the market. That is the challenge that the Minister must address.

Philip Hammond: My hon. Friend makes a good point. Perhaps I can provide some grounds for optimism by explaining my understanding of what is taking place in the marketplace between lead providers and specialist providers. Providers of specialist services are very much sought out by those who seek to be lead providers. That is because, in presenting their bids to Government, those lead providers need to show that they can access those specialist services, so I hope that the balance of negotiating power is not as lop-sided as my hon. Friend fears.
	We have a unique opportunity to exploit one of the advantages of using private and voluntary sector providers, and allow those providers to take on some of the risk, so that there is quicker roll-out, and so that we do not always have to listen to admirable ambitions for programmes that cannot be rolled out until resource constraints allow it. We may be failing to maximise the advantages of engaging the private and voluntary sectors as a result of a prescriptive structure. In particular, I was concerned, as were some potential providers, to learn that it is intended that Jobcentre Plus will, in every case, deliver the first work-focused interview. That proposed model hugely constrains the private and voluntary sectors.
	I understand that the Department for Work and Pensions has a screening tool to screen out those who are closest to the workplace, and that is quite right under value-for-money considerations; it would be frankly barmy to allow private sector contractors to take on people who were about to go back into the workplace, and to collect a large fee. I completely agree that there has to be a way of ensuring that that does not happen, but in a system where work-related activity is not compulsory, and in which even delivering the action plan is not required, the first interview will be the key to success.
	The first interview is the point at which many private and voluntary sector providers believe they can genuinely deliver value—by galvanizing a marginalised individual into seeing, understanding, and grasping his potential for getting back into the workplace and overcoming the disadvantages that his absence from it has caused him. He must be able to see the potential to change his situation. In other words, we must turn the rhetoric of putting the focus on what people can do into a reality. I am not saying for a moment that Jobcentre Plus staff cannot do that; I am saying that the first contact is integral to the whole process. In private and voluntary sector-led areas, the work-focused interview should be carried out by the provider, as an integral part of the process. Otherwise, there is a risk that the model proposed by the Secretary of State will be compromised.

Terry Rooney: Does the hon. Gentleman not accept that, under the system, claimants have an initial interview as part of the process of making a claim, so it makes perfect sense, and is cost-effective, to wrap that up with the initial work-focused interview?

Philip Hammond: The problem that I see is that there are two different functions—policing of the benefit rules and arrangements, and trying to catch someone's imagination and get them to think about what they could do and to think outside the box that they have been in. Even the most positive person, even the person who is most determined to try and get himself back into the workplace, will still want to secure his benefit arrangements and will have an eye focused on that. It has been strongly suggested to me by people I have spoken to that there is an inherent conflict that people face when talking to Jobcentre Plus staff about their benefit arrangements and entitlements, and about their abilities and possible courses of action. In areas where the private and voluntary sector is rolling out the positive side of the relationship, it should be allowed at the first contact to try to catch the person's imagination and engage them.
	I agree with the hon. Member for Kingswood (Roger Berry) that one of the roles that should correctly remain with Jobcentre Plus is the sanctioning arrangements. Following logically from what I have just said to the Chairman of the Select Committee, it would be perverse if the provider who is trying to focus someone resolutely on the positive side was engaged in a sanctioning role. The Secretary of State said that private sector providers had said that they wanted that power. None of those that I have talked to want to go within a mile of having a sanctioning power. They all said that they would rather Jobcentre Plus had that role.

Mark Pritchard: I welcome my hon. Friend's comments about the voluntary and not-for-profit sector. That proposal would be helpful where Jobcentre Plus staff have been laid off, as many thousands have been over the past few months, but where there are still Jobcentre Plus staff, does he agree that they are in the best position to undertake the first interview and assessment, and that there is a role in the job market for both providers? That may be a way forward, rather than one or the other, as the Government are suggesting.

Philip Hammond: I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. As the Chairman of the Select Committee rightly pointed out, there is a temptation to say that there are two functions: one entails gate-keeping the system, and the other relates to the first work-focused interview. There is a sense in which it might be economical to combine them. I am suggesting that that might cause considerable damage to the private sector providers' specific innovative approach.
	When the Minister for Employment and Welfare Reform winds up, will he touch on the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 1981? I am concerned by reports that TUPE requirements might be imposed on private and voluntary sector providers of pathways programmes, even though it would be a new programme being rolled out in those areas. It would be helpful if the Minister could clarify that.
	The Secretary of State is aware of and touched on the concerns that have been expressed about the design of the personal capability assessment, which is central to the process. We are all aware of the problems with the current system. The high success rate on appeal tends to suggest poor decision making in the Department for Work and Pensions. The Green Paper suggests that there are likely to be fewer appeals under the new system, but no indication is given of how we will achieve that step change in the quality of decision making following a more complicated assessment. It will be interesting to hear whether the Minister has any idea how we will get the number of appeals down. Will that be through better decision making or through a process change that will make it more difficult for people to appeal?
	I should like to ask the Minister about the single interview. My understanding—I am happy to be corrected if it is wrong—is that the personal capability assessment, the basic assessment of a person's ability and whether it is reasonable to expect them to work, and the capability for work test, the test to establish whether it is reasonable to expect them to engage in work-focused activity, and possibly the work-focused health assessment for those in the non-support group as well, will all be carried out at the same time. Concerns have been expressed by some providers that there will be perverse incentives for the individual going to a single interview that deals with those three very different things.
	I understand that it is the intention to pilot the new personal capability assessments, and I assume that that will be a piloting of the test itself within the framework of the existing benefit structure before the ESA is introduced. The explanatory notes suggest that there will be piloting, but I am happy to be corrected if that is not the case.
	One of the most important topics of the Green Paper was early intervention. The Green Paper referred to interventions in the GP's surgery and during the statutory sick pay period. The Opposition believe strongly that there is a need for early intervention. What was a pure test of medical condition has often become confused, with different standards being applied and different factors taken into account by different GPs. The Green Paper made proposals for changes to statutory sick pay and the Government were right to abandon the idea of scrapping the three-day rule, but the focus on on-flow will be incomplete if SSP is ignored.
	There is nothing in the Bill about SSP, but that may be because it does not require primary legislation. I urge the Secretary of State not to ignore this aspect. It cannot be right to ignore somebody in work who has become sick or incapacitated for six months before even considering their case and what ought to be done.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Ruffley) and I made an interesting visit to the Netherlands a couple of months ago—I understand the Minister may do so in due course—to see how the system operates there, with early and active intervention to help avoid people reaching the stage of long-term sickness.

Terry Rooney: The hon. Gentleman should tell the full story. For the first two years of sickness, the employer remains liable for full wages under that system. That is a powerful incentive for the employer to get involved in rehabilitation. Does the hon. Gentleman want the same system in the United Kingdom?

Philip Hammond: If the hon. Gentleman will allow me, I was about to say that the situation in the Netherlands is quite different from the situation that we have in this country, but as a model for early intervention, it was extremely informative. The Select Committee has also made a visit and drew broadly the same conclusions, and I believe the Minister is due to make a visit. I met many people who are looking forward to greeting him in due course.
	We do not want to impose further burdens on employers. They have quite a few of those coming down the line anyway. The hon. Member for Bradford, North (Mr. Rooney) will forgive me if, after having stood up and been counted recommending a 3 per cent. compulsory contribution to NPSS—national pension savings scheme— pensions, we do not want to impose too many new burdens on employers.
	However, what we think is necessary is a simple procedure to identify likely long-term cases early in the statutory sick pay period—perhaps after six weeks, although I do not know whether that is the right period—so that people who remain in employment and on statutory sick pay could begin the processes of assessment under the ESA. That would entail engagement with their existing employer to look at their options, which is the preferred route, or engagement with job brokers or pathways providers to find suitable alternatives. That makes sense for both the individual and society. If we leave somebody idle and cast aside for six months on SSP, we raise the bar significantly to their eventual return to work.
	The proposal will also be attractive in the short term to the individual employee, because if he can get the assessment period for ESA under way while he is still on SSP, he will be chewing up some of the 12-week period in which he will be on an effective JSA rate of support and getting—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Call me old-fashioned, and initials are all very well, but sometimes it is a good idea to say everything in full, not just for the sake of the  Official Report, but for people outside the House.

Philip Hammond: I am grateful to you for that guidance, Mr. Deputy Speaker. It is remarkable how quickly we slip into the jargon of our portfolios. The only trouble is that removing all the initials will probably double the length of the debate. JSA is the jobseeker's allowance and ESA is the employment and support allowance.
	If it were possible to get somebody on to the assessment stage of ESA during the statutory sick pay period, that would be sufficiently attractive to the individual for this to be an entirely voluntary programme. I simply want to float this idea to the Minister and ask whether the Department is considering that, and if not, whether he would be prepared to do so, because from all the work that we have done it seems to be the key to addressing the problem, at least for the group of people who go from work on to long-term incapacity payments.
	Many other issues have been raised during the course of the consultation, and they will be probed more fully in Committee. However, I have a couple of other questions to put to the Minister in relation to part 1. The DWP five-year plan refers to a further conditional payment for fulfilment of action plans. That seems to have been dropped in favour of work-related activity, which the notes explicitly say could be different from the action plans. It is difficult to understand the point of making an action plan if people will then be allowed to fulfil their obligations by doing something different from what has been written in the action plan, so perhaps the Minister could explain why that pledge has been dropped. I make no apology for having concentrated on the employment and support allowance and the pathways to work programme.
	The Green Paper made a clear commitment to getting 300,000 lone parents and a million older people back into work. There is nothing specific in the Bill about achieving those targets, and there may not need to be because they may not need legislation, or the legislation may exist elsewhere. We strongly support the proposals, but there is a need for employer education and a change in some employer attitudes. My point in raising that at this stage is to say that while that may not need primary legislation in a DWP Bill, I hope that the DWP is prepared to act as lead supporter for the initiative in government. I am shocked that private and voluntary sector providers of up and running programmes universally say that placing people with the public sector is much more difficult than placing people with the private sector. The Government, as the largest employer in the country, should aspire to lead from the front and be the most flexible and receptive employer to the particular needs of people coming off incapacity benefit, older workers wanting to work flexibly and part time, and lone parents with particular requirements for a particular kind of flexibility in their working life, if they are to get back into work.
	The changes to housing benefit fall into two parts, the first being greater tenant engagement in achieving value for money. No one could possibly disagree with that. That is a sensible and unbureaucratic way of trying to give people some real responsibility for the consequences of their decisions, and some benefit from making the most appropriate decisions.
	The second part is the direct payment of rent, and I have some reservations about the wisdom of going down that route. The theory that the Secretary of State outlined is unimpeachable: giving people greater responsibility must in general be a good thing. But housing benefit payments will often be a very significant part of a person's total income, and some at least of the people who receive those direct payments will succumb, either to temptation or to pressing alternative need, and the consequence will be that they get into debt, into rent arrears, and ultimately perhaps face eviction. The Secretary of State says that the evidence from the pilots does not suggest that, and I know that the full results of the pilots will be published in due course, but what he says is so counterintuitive, and everybody involved in dealing with housing benefit tenants in the housing markets is so surprised by that outcome, that we need to do some more work on that area.
	On Friday, I visited a homeless drop-in centre in Chester and I asked how many of the people who were being referred on to hostel accommodation were there as a result of having got into rent arrears and having been evicted from private accommodation. The answer was about 50 per cent. one way or another. The manager of that centre gave me an unequivocal assurance that the numbers would go up if a significant number of her clients were to receive direct payment of benefits. I know that there is a provision for local housing authorities to identify people who are at risk and not to make the payments direct to them, but the Minister will know that the guidance notes suggest that local authorities should not in any way be proactive in seeking out people who may be vulnerable in that way, so there is a real problem there that needs to be considered further. It is not a dogmatic point. There is a clear consensus that if we can give people responsibility, we should, but surely to goodness, not at the expense of them getting into rent arrears and debt, and facing possible eviction.
	When the Minister winds up, will he confirm my understanding that it will not be possible to roll out the new local housing allowances to people who are in existing tenancies? There are practical and technical reasons for that. There is something of a double standard in not rolling out these arrangements to the social sector, and in particular to local authority tenants, where the landlord would be both the payer of the benefit and the receiver of the rent. From a basic economics point of view, there must inevitably be a reaction by landlords to the creation of greater risk for them in the marketplace. If a landlord who has been used to receiving a rent cheque reliably once a fortnight from a local authority, virtually a gilt-edged payment, is now to be invited to receive the rent from the tenant directly when and as he is able to make that payment, over time a premium will be demanded for taking on such tenants. Again, that will be to the disadvantage of the Exchequer if ultimately a two-tier market is created, and a marketplace that at the moment is regarded as attractive by landlords of housing benefit tenants because of the method of payment becomes an unattractive one with premiums and perhaps higher deposits demanded.
	We remain deeply sceptical about the housing benefit sanctions for antisocial behaviour. We support entirely the taking of the toughest possible stance with those who are guilty of antisocial behaviour, but we have been here before, and the question is being asked whether this is a real threat or just a headline gimmick. If the threat of eviction has failed to change someone's behaviour, will the threat of losing their housing benefit make the difference? The suggestion that has been put to me is that it is most unlikely in those circumstances that the policy would be effective. Therefore, I am open-minded, but at this stage I am sceptical.

Andrew Love: Is the hon. Gentleman concerned that families will effectively be put out on the street and that children will be taken into care?

Philip Hammond: That is one of the principal concerns. The Secretary of State has addressed that point and is well aware of the concern. He is confident that the arrangements will ensure that that does not happen, although, again, it is not clear how that will be guaranteed.
	I want the Minister for Employment and Welfare Reform to clarify one final point in his winding-up speech. At last Monday's Second Reading of the Compensation Bill, the Under-Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs, the hon. Member for Lewisham, East (Bridget Prentice), suggested that this Bill might be an appropriate place to address issues in respect of asbestos-related diseases that had arisen in the debate on that Bill, which would go beyond what is already in clauses 55 and 56. It would help if the Minister were to tell us whether the Government intend to go further in that area in this Bill or whether the Under-Secretary did not intend to give that hint.
	We support the Bill's key objectives to get 1 million people off incapacity benefit and 300,000 lone parents and 1 million older workers back into the workplace. We recognise that that is an enormously complex area and that the detail of the Bill will need to be scrutinised along with the detail of the supporting programme and the draft regulations, which will be laid in due course.
	We believe that the laudable objective of tackling poverty and social exclusion by reintegrating people into the work force through an increase in off-flow will most quickly be achieved by a greater transfer of risk to the private and voluntary sector, thus overcoming the resource constraints, which hon. Members have mentioned, and allowing the benefits to flow as widely and as quickly as possible. Coupled with that, we believe that there needs to be a new focus on early intervention during the statutory sick pay period to try to ensure that people in work stay in the work force, even where their current work is no longer appropriate for them.
	I have not addressed many specific concerns which I know that other hon. Members will raise in the debate. We will listen carefully to what is said and genuinely look forward to a constructive experience in Committee. We will certainly not oppose the Second Reading of the Bill tonight, so it can go forward in Committee.

Several hon. Members: rose—

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I remind hon. Members that Mr. Speaker has imposed a 12-minute limit on speeches by Back Benchers.

Hugh Bayley: Since 1997, Labour's macro-economic policies, support for flexible labour markets and welfare to work incentives have guaranteed faster growth in this country than across the EU as a whole, created 2.5 million additional jobs and reduced employment to less than 1 million. That success has brought tangible improvements to the welfare of millions of employees and their families, but those improvements have not been shared by sick and disabled people of working age.
	In my intervention on the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond), I mentioned that the number of people of working age who were not working and who were claiming ill-health benefits quadrupled when his party was in power. Labour's achievement has been to stabilise those figures. In our first term, the number of people on incapacity benefit decreased marginally from 2.4 million to 2.263 million. In the second term, the figure rose marginally, but it was still slightly below the level that we inherited when we came to power. However, it is clear that stabilising the figures is not enough. More needs to be done and I therefore welcome the Bill.
	I was the Minister responsible for disability benefits when the Welfare Reform and Pensions Act 1999 was before the House. I do not need to remind hon. Members who were in the House at the time that the Bill had a rocky ride.

Justine Greening: I apologise for returning to the hon. Gentleman's earlier point about stabilising the figures, but I have been looking for a statistic. Is he aware that, since 1997, the number of young people under 25 claiming incapacity benefit has risen by 71 per cent. to 170,200? Does he agree that that statistic is particularly concerning?

Hugh Bayley: The hon. Lady should not pick among the figures. Any rise is a concern, and any reduction—there have been reductions among other age groups—is a benefit. The demonstrable difference between the Labour party's time in power and when the Conservative party was in power is that the number of people claiming incapacity benefit quadrupled under the Conservatives. Overall, the Labour Government have stabilised the figures, but we need to change that and get the numbers down. When the Conservative party came to power, 600,000 people were on invalidity benefit, so it must be possible to have fewer than 2.4 million people on incapacity benefit now.
	When the 1999 Act was before the House, two points attracted criticism. The first concerned the changes to the contribution conditions for incapacity benefit and the second concerned the reduction in the value of incapacity benefit for those claimants who had occupational pensions. The Government responded to those criticisms by amending the legislation, but the controversy drew attention away from the Government strategy to increase benefits for severely disabled people who could not work and to start to provide support for people on incapacity benefit to return to work through the new deal for disabled people.
	As many hon. Members have acknowledged, the Government have set an ambitious target to reduce by 1 million the number of people claiming incapacity benefit by enabling those people to get back into work. Having set such an ambitious target, I do not want the Government to make the same mistake now as we did in 1999 by giving the impression of narrowing the eligibility gateway to incapacity benefit instead of enabling people to overcome the limitations imposed by illness or disability in order to remain in work or to return to work.
	The Government have demonstrated through the new deal for disabled people and, more recently, through pathways to work that, with appropriate help and support, people on incapacity benefit can return to work and, importantly, cope with work when they get there. Simply enabling people to get a job is not enough, because one must give them support to enable them to make a success of their jobs. Through the new deals, some 75,000 disabled people have come off incapacity benefits and returned to work.
	In the UK, we reap the benefits of a flexible labour market so far as overall employment is concerned, but we still have an inflexible labour market when it comes to employment opportunities for sick and disabled people. Compared with other OECD countries, we have an acute shortage of occupational health services. We also have a rigid culture among both employers and employees that either one is well and working or one is limited by illness or disability, and off work temporarily or permanently.
	As my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, North-West (John Robertson) said, far too many GPs still sign sick notes without recognising the cost or that work, perhaps with reduced hours or changed responsibilities, may aid recovery. We must ensure that welfare forms an important part of GPs' initial training and postgraduate education. Perhaps we should examine ways to reward GPs who use sick notes wisely in the same way as we reward GPs who prescribe rationally and wisely.

Ian Gibson: My hon. Friend will know that an important part of the assessment is that a doctor appointed by the Secretary of State will be chosen to help the decision maker to decide whether a person no longer has the capacity to work. How will those doctors be chosen and how will we know that they are doing this with some understanding at different stages of the process?

Hugh Bayley: My hon. Friend raises an important point. When I became the Minister with those responsibilities, there was no specific training in disability assessment for such doctors. The Royal College of Physicians introduced a postgraduate diploma in disability assessment medicine to train them and it was intended to ensure over time that all doctors working for the Department for Work and Pensions would be trained in disability management. That is an extremely important part of the package.
	There is a shortage of vocational rehabilitation services, including medical and psychological services and practical help with overcoming functional impairments. A study in 14 OECD countries, "Transforming Disability into Ability", which was published in 2003, compared the number of people who each year go through vocational rehabilitation with the number flowing on to long-term incapacity benefits. In Norway, Denmark and Korea, more people get access to vocational rehabilitation than go on to incapacity benefits. In Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands and the United States, about 50 per cent. of the number who go on to incapacity benefits get access to rehabilitation services. In Switzerland, Australia and Portugal, the figure is some 20 to 30 per cent. In the UK, it is still less than 5 per cent. We are second lowest of the 14 OECD states in the study.
	More revealingly, the study calculated that spending on vocational rehabilitation as a percentage of spending on disability benefits varies enormously. In Norway, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, Portugal, Australia and Belgium, spending on rehabilitation is between 70 and 100 per cent. of spending on incapacity benefits. In Denmark, Korea and the United States, the figure is about 50 per cent. In the UK, along with Poland, Austria and the Netherlands, we spend less than 20 per cent. of the amount spent on benefits for long-term sick and disabled people on rehabilitation. It is therefore not surprising that fewer people are rehabilitated in the UK or that the number of incapacity benefit claimants here is higher than the number of people claiming similar benefits in most other OECD countries. It is important to complement the measures in the Bill by substantially increasing the resources available for vocational rehabilitation. That would gain widespread support from organisations representing disabled people.
	Within the national health service, there has been a substantial increase in resources for rehabilitation. However, its priority is to rehabilitate hospital patients to the point at which it is possible to discharge them so that they may return home, and not necessarily to continue the rehabilitation to the point where they can return to work. The NHS needs to earmark more resources for vocational rehabilitation.
	The Government should consider creating financial incentives to reward successful cases of rehabilitation. As the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge said, huge savings accrue to the DWP and the Government when people come off incapacity benefit. Those savings should be recycled to pay for more people to be rehabilitated.
	There are lessons to be learned from abroad, although not necessarily from the Netherlands, where, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, North (Mr. Rooney) pointed out, there is an incentive for employers to rehabilitate their staff because they carry the cost of somebody being off work for the first two years of absence. That is not the situation in this country. We could perhaps learn a better lesson from Germany or Switzerland, where, under the Bismarck insurance scheme, employers pay into a common fund that gives cover for health, rehabilitation and pensions. The German phrase for such funds is "Rehabilitation vor Rente"—"rehabilitation before pension". Those insurance funds have an incentive to rehabilitate, because the person then goes back to work and starts paying contributions again. If the scheme fails to rehabilitate, it ends up paying a pension for life.
	There have been similar experiments in Sweden, where pilots have merged benefits and health budgets at local level to pass benefits savings on to health care providers when rehabilitation successfully gets people back to work. I should like our Government to adopt a similar approach. Perhaps a simple way to pilot it would be to give a health and vocational rehabilitation purchasing budget to the managers of the pathways into work pilots. If the NHS does not have the incentive to rehabilitate to the point at which people get back to work, we need to create an incentive for the DWP to reap the financial benefits when somebody is successfully rehabilitated and returned to work.
	When the Conservatives were in power and unemployment broke the 3 million barrier for the second time, a Conservative Chancellor of the Exchequer said that, sadly, there was no alternative. The record of this Labour Government in their first two terms has shown that there is an alternative. For fit people of working age, unemployment has fallen dramatically to fewer than 1 million. That is something that this Labour Government will be remembered for. The challenge for the third term is to show that there is an alternative for people on long-term sickness and incapacity benefits. The Bill shows the way forward, but it needs to be complemented by greater investment in rehabilitation services.

Danny Alexander: It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for City of York (Hugh Bayley). I agree with the stress that he puts on the need for more emphasis on rehabilitation in the training of doctors and a greater sense of awareness, particularly among GPs, of the importance of work and occupational health as a route to dealing with medical conditions. The medical practice in Camden in north London where the idea of having an employment adviser within the practice has been piloted has received visits from all the Front Benchers present, and it is probably getting sick of politicians trooping through the place. The lesson to be learned is that such a measure can have a great deal of success in helping people back to work, as well as reducing medical bills.
	This debate has been delayed for far too long. The fact that more than 2.5 million people remain on incapacity benefit is unacceptable, and it is a disgrace that that group has been so long neglected by Governments of both parties.
	The Minister will be pleased to hear that we strongly agree with the principles behind this reform—principally, that society should play a much more active role in enabling the sick and disabled to take the opportunities afforded by participation in the labour market. That objective is vital not only for the individuals concerned but for society as a whole. As has been said, work is the best route out of poverty, and we all benefit, as a society, from higher levels of economic activity.
	While supporting the principle of welfare reform and many of the measures in the Bill, we are concerned because the Government's proposals are short on detail, because there is a shortage of funding in some respects, and because they rely for delivery on a Department that is under massive pressure. Liberals have long believed that freedom is curtailed by poverty and disadvantage. Today, my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for North-East Fife (Sir Menzies Campbell) again made tackling poverty a top priority for Liberal Democrats. Welfare reform is central to that objective.
	Despite the long wait, the Bill gives every impression of being rushed in some respects. Huge chunks of important policy detail are relegated to secondary legislation, and by leaving Second Reading until just before the recess, the Minister gives himself time to work out the detail in many of those areas. The carry-over procedure, which will be the subject of a later motion, was neither designed as a general catch-all to allow Departments to delay legislation nor to apply to Bills that had not been subject to pre-legislative scrutiny. If the carry-over motion is to have all-party support—it was intended that such motions should—the Minister for Employment and Welfare Reform must provide a specific justification for using it in the case that we are considering. I hope that he will do that in his winding-up speech.
	I hope that the Minister can also give a clear assurance, linked to my previous point, that sufficient time will be allocated in Committee to allow full scrutiny of the Bill's important provisions. That will require the Government to publish in draft the key statutory instruments—the Minister undertook to do that in answer to oral questions—but I hope that he will include those that deal with the level of benefit, rules of entitlement to benefit, the capability assessment and the other proposed medical assessments, conditionality, the housing benefit reform and sanctions.
	The Bill proposes a framework of additional responsibilities for claimants, but that can be fair only if the state and employers take their share of responsibility. As the Disability Rights Commission said:
	"In return for effective opportunities and support, we believe it is reasonable to expect more people to move towards work. Without effective opportunities and support, it is not reasonable to expect greater responsibilities of claimants."
	The evaluation of pathways to work shows that the scheme has markedly improved employment outcomes. It incorporates the individually focused approach that Liberal Democrats have long advocated, and we welcome its success. However, unless the roll-out of the scheme is properly funded and coherently planned, I have grave concerns about whether it can fulfil all the expectations. The Government have allocated £360 million, as the Secretary of State said, to rolling out pathways to work. However, we still do not know exactly how much of the figure will be spent on doing that. Will the Minister give us more detail today? Will he tell us how much money will be spent on the new computer system needed to administer the new employment and support allowance benefit?
	Even if all the £360 million were spent on rolling out pathways to work, our calculations, based on the amounts that have been spent in the pilot areas, suggest that the figure is more than £250 million short simply for dealing with the needs of new claimants. If the objective were to support all eligible claimants, the welfare black hole would be even greater. Given the cuts at Jobcentre Plus, it is also unclear whether there will be sufficient well-trained personal advisers, let alone extra resources from the Treasury, to deliver the scheme.
	Although the Secretary of State did not mention the matter, the newspapers report that the Government have tacitly admitted that the funds are inadequate by suggesting that the support through pathways to work should be targeted at those with children. Will the Minister confirm whether that is the Government's intention?
	The Government have made it clear that they want to target pathways resources in other ways. For example, the city strategy is a welcome attempt to tackle concentrations of incapacity benefit claims by joining up resources in specific cities. However, there is a worrying neglect of the challenging issue of helping claimants in rural and remote areas back to work, not to mention the pockets of deprivation found in rural towns and villages. I hope that the Minister can deal with that point, which was also made in an earlier intervention.
	It is worth pointing out that the success of pathways to work has not been even for all groups. The Department-funded evaluation, which the Institute for Fiscal Studies carried out, found no statistically significant improvement for people with mental ill health as the primary reason for their claim. Age Concern said that the scheme had been much less successful for the over-50s. Better support for both groups is vital if welfare reform is to be a success.
	The voluntary and private sectors can be highly successful in getting people back to work. In some ways and some places, they have been more successful than Jobcentre Plus. I highlight the work of the SHIRLIE project in Inverness, in my constituency. It helps especially those with learning disabilities back to work. The working neighbourhoods project in Parkhead in Glasgow has received several visits from politicians, but has also been successful in targeting not only those on incapacity benefit but a range of disadvantaged groups, through one joined-up project.
	However, it is important to ask how the experience of the voluntary sector will be used throughout the country. The current plan is a bit of a dog's breakfast, with Jobcentre Plus delivering 40 per cent. of provision and the voluntary and private sectors being used for the remaining 60 per cent. If the voluntary sector is as effective as the Government say it is—we agree about that—why will their expertise not be on offer throughout the country?
	Work-related activity must reflect the nature of a person's impairment. Specialist as well as more local providers should therefore be contracted to help specific client groups. There should not simply be big contracts with big providers.
	In dealing with the needs of people with mental health problems, we need to ensure that there are enough trained therapists throughout the UK, as Lord Layard, for example, proposed. Given the five-year training for many of those roles, what plans have the Government to train people to fill the roles that will be needed if welfare-to-work support is to be properly available for people whose first reason for claiming benefit is mental ill health?
	In proposing the new employment and support allowance, the Government have missed an opportunity to simplify our enormously complex benefits system. They have also missed an opportunity to tackle the poverty and low income traps that remain far too prevalent in the benefit system, not least in the tapers for housing benefit, council tax benefit and income disregards. There is an opportunity to unify the system. The income disregard is currently a great deal smaller than that for incapacity benefit. That means that although the income disregard for incapacity benefit may encourage people to try out work for a few hours a week, they then get caught in the housing benefit trap, which leads to their losing benefit and acts as a strong disincentive to taking work.
	Will those who receive the income-related employment and support allowance, who would previously probably have been entitled to income support, also be entitled to passported benefits—for example, free NHS prescriptions and dental treatment, free school meals, funeral expenses and so on? That is important for many claimants. Unless the Minister can clarify the matter, there may cases of the new benefit leaving people worse off.
	Will the Minister also explain why employment and support allowance, once decided, is not to be backdated to the start of the claim? Not doing that will cause serious problems for some people, especially those who leave work or statutory sick pay, or younger claimants who will be penalised through the reduced rate that applies in the early phase of the benefit.
	I want to consider the proposed medical assessment process. The incapacity benefit medical assessment desperately needs reform. It is subject to persistent concerns about unfairness and poor decision making, especially about mental health. Some 50 per cent. of appeals are granted. A working group is considering improving the assessment, and I welcome the Secretary of State's commitment to ensuring that more detail is available before the Committee discusses the matter. It is vital for the Government to get it right. The Royal College of Psychiatrists want rigorous testing and evaluation of the new assessment system for those with mental health conditions. In a written answer, the Minister suggested that some sort of testing, but not a formal piloting process, will take place. Will he explain exactly how the new assessment will be tested?

John Robertson: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that there should be rigorous testing of GPs and the way in which they examine some of their patients to whom they give sick lines so readily?

Danny Alexander: The hon. Gentleman makes an important point, which the Minister should address. There is also a problem with appeals. Roughly 50 per cent. of GPs do not reply to requests for information for the first medical assessment. It is only when the appeal phase is reached, and the GP then provides information, that the appeal is successful. There may be a link, which the Government should explore, between those factors.

Michael Weir: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that one of the problems with the assessment process is that many people who go for an assessment feel that the person conducting it does not have sufficient knowledge of the specific condition from which they suffer? If we are to make changes, it is important to ensure that all those who conduct assessments have sufficient knowledge of the person or condition that they assess.

Danny Alexander: I agree. The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. It is a common complaint that the test takes into account someone's condition only on that specific day. The new test needs to deal better at dealing with fluctuating conditions and progressive conditions, such as multiple sclerosis.

Philip Hammond: There seems to be some confusion about whether the new personal capability assessments are to be piloted. When I mentioned the matter earlier the Secretary of State appeared to suggest that they would not, and that there would be testing rather than piloting. According to my Library briefing, the Department's response to the Select Committee report states, on page 8:
	"The working groups are due to report to DWP Ministers by September 2006, after which there will be a period for piloting the revised PCA."
	Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would care to comment on that.

Danny Alexander: I have already expressed the view that this proposal should be subject to rigorous piloting. I hope that in the Minister's response—

Jim Murphy: rose—

Danny Alexander: I shall give way to the Minister, so that he can tell us now.

Jim Murphy: I am sorry for intervening on the hon. Gentleman, because I know that many hon. Members wish to participate in the debate, but I want to clarify the confusion. It is our intention that once the review has concluded in September, we will run both systems in parallel with each other to ensure that proper testing takes place. Whether we call that a dummy run or piloting, it will be an effective way of ascertaining whether we have got the new system absolutely right. We shall compare it with the current assessment of existing cases.

Danny Alexander: I am grateful to the Minister for clarifying that point— [ Interruption. ] However, my hon. Friend the Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) has just suggested from a sedentary position that it is possible for both systems to be wrong at the same time. The Minister's plan is not necessarily a guarantee of success—

John Robertson: They could both be right.

Danny Alexander: They could, but I shall certainly be keen to see a lot more details of the testing that the Government have in mind. Perhaps the Minister will say more about that when he winds up the debate.
	It is also important to understand how the new capability assessment relates to the proposed work-related health-focused assessments. If only those on the work-related activity premium are to be subjected to the latter, but the two assessments are supposed to take place at the same time—as it says in the explanatory notes—how will it be decided whether it is appropriate for someone to move on to the work-related health-focused assessment at stage two? Will that decision be taken on the day, or will they be invited back?
	It will be disappointing if, as has been hinted, the new assessment is still to be based purely on a medical model of illness and disability. A test that can take account of psycho-social factors and the barriers that disabled people face would give fairer outcomes. The Government recognised in their Green Paper that the term "personal capacity assessment" had negative connotations. However, so does a test for "limited capability". If the tests are to be taken together, they should be given a different name, such as the labour market disadvantage test. That would signpost a different approach, focused on identifying impairment-related barriers to work. I hope that the Government will consider that suggestion.
	I want to turn now to the conditionality arrangements in the Bill. The principle of responsibility is an essential part of liberalism. Provided that comprehensive support is available to help individuals to get back to work, and appropriate safeguards are in place to protect the most vulnerable, the idea that people should take responsibility for engaging with the available support is one that we encourage. Indeed, it must surely be a central objective of policy to reach a position where disabled people are supported to the extent that they can play their role as full and active citizens, with all the rights and responsibilities that that entails.
	However, we have some concerns about the conditionality regime as it is proposed in the Bill. Conditionality will apply not only to engaging with support through work-focused interviews, which we support, but to work-focused activity and, according to the Bill, to taking part in additional work-focused health-related assessments—although the Secretary of State suggested in response to my intervention that the Government had now dropped that plan, which sounds quite sensible.
	Pathways to work will need much higher investment if the balance between the quality of support and the personal responsibility of the claimant is to be fair. That is particularly important if the receipt of benefit is to be conditional on work-related activity. Nor, in the Government's proposals, is there any limit to the period for which conditionality will apply. If someone has struggled to enter the labour market for a long time without success, despite benefiting from the full range of support on offer, should they really be forced to continue to take part in fruitless activity?
	By leaving the details entirely to secondary legislation, the Government are allowing the possibility that a less compassionate Government—or, indeed, the present Government in one of their less compassionate moods—could increase the sanctions and reduce the support.

David Ruffley: Yes, Labour.

Danny Alexander: I hear a "yes" from the Conservative Front Bench. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman is anticipating an occasion on which he could do exactly that. This is why we need to be careful about what is in the Bill and what is to be introduced through regulations. We remain to be convinced that the safeguards in the system for vulnerable people are sufficient, and a robust system of appeals must also be put in place.
	As the hon. Member for City of York rightly said, preparing disabled people for work is not enough if there are no employers ready and willing to take them on. On this point, the Bill and the Green Paper are both lamentably silent. Much more could and should be done to work with employers. For example, the access to work scheme is one of the Government's best kept secrets. According to their own figures, for every person helped through the scheme, there is a £1,400 net benefit to the Exchequer and a £3,000 net benefit to the economy. Yet still the Government fail to promote the scheme adequately, and about 80 per cent. of small employers are unaware of it.
	The Government should use the Bill as an opportunity to invest in the promotion of the access to work scheme, particularly to small businesses, and to make changes to the way in which access to work decisions are made, so that people will know their access to work entitlements before they approach an employer. Also, I hope that the Minister will review the decision to remove the access to work scheme from central Government Departments. The DWP's poor performance in employing disabled people sets a bad example.
	The Employers Forum on Disability has pioneered the auditing of disability standards for employers. The Government should consult on a duty for larger employers to carry out such audits because, as the forum makes clear, this should not be seen as a burden. After all, disabled people are customers, employees, stakeholders, partners and competitors, and 82 per cent. of customers with disabilities surveyed recently have taken their business to a more disability-confident business competitor in the past 12 months. Each year, 25,000 people leave work due to injury and ill health, but this drain of talent is unnecessary. Forty-three per cent. of European workers say that they could work if employers made adjustments.
	I hope that the Minister will also take the opportunity that the Bill provides to pick up the idea proposed in a 10-minute Bill by the hon. Member for Glasgow, North-West (John Robertson). I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will say much more about that in his speech, and I do not wish to steal his thunder. However, his proposal for rehabilitation leave is a significant one, and it could make a real difference.
	I now turn to the Bill's proposals on housing benefit reform. The proposed local housing allowance has some positive features, but the evaluation has shown that although some benefits have emerged, there have been fewer than had been hoped. The Bill provides welcome simplification of the process of obtaining extended payments when a claimant enters work or has a significant rise in income. The Liberal Democrats welcome the steps to encourage greater financial responsibility. I am pleased that the worries about increases in rent arrears—which the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond) mentioned—and about evictions have so far not been realised in the pilots.
	The evidence from the pilots also suggests, however, that the objective of simplifying the administration and reducing administration costs has been undermined because the new vulnerability assessment—which I welcome—is needed to help people who cannot manage direct payments. So the savings that will be made by administering the new benefit will have to be balanced against the increase in administration needed to make the vulnerability assessment work properly.
	There has been a welcome fall in the number of people facing a shortfall in their rents in the pilot areas. However, this depends on how the local housing allowance rates are set. They are set according to broad rental market areas, and are based on the local market rent. Different outcomes can therefore be found in different areas. In Conwy, for example, Shelter found that only 10 per cent. of property was affordable for local housing allowance recipients, whereas the figure was 55 per cent. in Edinburgh. Perhaps rent officers should be guided by the statutory minimum proportion of affordable property in each broad rental market area when establishing those areas. Given the housing and benefit provision duties of councils, it would be reasonable to require the rent service to consult them on the setting of broad rental market area boundaries.
	The pathfinder areas were given significant extra financial resources to provide financial advice and help to those who had not received direct payments of housing benefit before. I hope that the Minister will make it clear that that will continue as the new system is rolled out across all the local authorities, because in many areas, help such as that provided by Citizens Advice was crucial in preventing the short-term drop-off in payments and subsequent rise in arrears and evictions that the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge mentioned.
	The Liberal Democrats have always opposed the single room rent, as did the present Secretary of State, and the Prime Minister, when the Conservative party introduced it. It will continue under this Bill, however, in a slightly different form—the shared room rate. While the shared room rate is slightly more generous, the basic unfairness and large rent shortfalls will continue. We will introduce amendments to scrap it, which we hope will have the support of all those who voted against the single room rent when it was introduced in 1996.
	I now turn to the provisions relating to antisocial behaviour. Liberal Democrat Members bow to no one in our determination to deal with antisocial behaviour, as the performance of Liberal Democrat-run local authorities across the country will show.

Sadiq Khan: Say it with a straight face.

Danny Alexander: I did say it with a straight face, because it is true. However, the people who suffer from antisocial behaviour want measures that work on the ground, not just on the front page. We will need to examine in Committee whether the proposal will deliver a real benefit, or whether it is just a gimmick to provide headlines for the Government.

Greg Hands: My impression has been that the Liberal Democrats have pretty much opposed every piece of antisocial behaviour legislation. Can the hon. Gentleman go into a little detail about why he opposes this measure? It seems to me that it is removing housing benefit from people who have already been evicted for antisocial behaviour, and is essentially designed to get such people to undertake a rehabilitation course?

Danny Alexander: I am grateful for that intervention, as it gives me the opportunity to point out that, as my colleagues reliably inform me, Liberal Democrat and Conservative Members have been in the same Lobby on most votes on antisocial behaviour. We will not take any lessons from the hon. Gentleman on antisocial behaviour. If he is interested in discussing antisocial behaviour, he might care to reflect on ideas such as acceptable behaviour contracts, which have been pioneered by Liberal Democrat councils such as Islington, and which have even been celebrated by Government Members; perhaps when they did not realise that they were Liberal Democrat ideas. If he had listened carefully, he would recall that I said that the measure would need to be examined carefully in Committee to see whether it will deliver a real benefit.

Andrew Love: The hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct that the rehabilitation courses suggested will need to be considered carefully. As I understand it, however, the Government are suggesting that there should be a number of pilots over two years. Is not it sensible to wait for the results of those pilots?

Danny Alexander: I am aware that the Government have said that there should be pilots for the measure. Ministers, although not the Secretary of State, have also said that the number of occasions on which they expect it to be used is very few—

David Laws: Tiny.

Danny Alexander: As my hon. Friend says, the word used was "tiny". What we will learn from the pilots I do not know. As I said, we will need to scrutinise the proposal carefully in Committee.

Adrian Bailey: Given the hon. Gentleman's declared Liberal Democrat opposition to this policy, will he say whether any Liberal Democrat councils will agree to be part of the pilot scheme?

Danny Alexander: As a good Liberal Democrat, I take the view that democratically elected councils should be in a position to decide such things for themselves. I do not share the authoritarian tendencies exhibited far too often both by Ministers and by Conservative Members. If the hon. Gentleman had listened carefully, he would know that I have not declared stringent Liberal Democrat opposition to the measure. I have said that it needs to be considered carefully in Committee. I was also about to make clear—this point may be of interest to some Members who intervened earlier—that there are still real concerns about the impact of the proposal on families with children. Who is being asked to take the punishment for antisocial behaviour? Is it the children of an antisocial tenant, or perhaps even the parents or siblings of an antisocial teenager? We need a lot of answers on that point. I look forward to debating the matter in Committee.  [Interruption.] I am not sure whether that was an intervention, so I shall press on. Perhaps an acceptable behaviour contract would be appropriate.
	In relation to the provisions on compensation for mesothelioma, I welcome the Government's steps to expedite the issue. It is important, however, that we get a proper answer to the point that the hon. Member for Barnsley, West and Penistone (Mr. Clapham) made in an intervention. Can the Minister ensure that the compensation process is as rapid as possible, and that it will extend to partners suffering from those diseases, such as wives exposed to the fibres while cleaning overalls? The issue has been much debated, and it is important that we press on, as time is of the essence.
	The objective of the Bill is to help more people off incapacity benefit and into work. We support that objective. I hope that the Bill will receive its Second Reading tonight, so that it can proceed to Committee and the issues and flaws that I have identified can be addressed. We will work constructively to improve the Bill. Whether we support it when it returns to the Floor of the House, however, will depend entirely on the extent to which Ministers are willing to listen to the many concerns that exist both in the House and outside.

Karen Buck: All-party consensus usually makes me a little nervous. On a topical note, the high degree of consensus in relation to the introduction of the Child Support Agency should act as a salutary reminder that the fact that we all agree with something does not mean that we have got it right. Undoubtedly, however, the thrust of this Bill is right, sensible and carefully balanced. Both current and recent Ministers should be congratulated on tackling an issue that only a few years ago was toxically controversial, and producing a package of proposals that can command broad support, subject to debate about a number of specific and detailed issues of implementation.
	I want to spend most of my time talking about the housing benefit elements of the proposals—housing benefit is an issue in which I take an almost unhealthy interest. Before I do so, I want to spend a few minutes on incapacity benefit, especially as it relates to my community. As my hon. Friend the Member for City of York (Hugh Bayley) was saying, just as national trends in incapacity claims tell us a great deal not just about the claimants but about the labour market, social and even cultural context, so local trends can alert us to something important going on, and warn us that we need to take action.
	In my constituency, the leafy-sounding Regent's Park and Kensington, North, 11 per cent. of the working age population are on incapacity benefit—more than the number of people who claim incapacity benefit in the Rhondda, the equal highest percentage in London, and a higher percentage of the working age population than many areas traditionally associated with high IB levels, such as Barnsley, Bradford, Chesterfield and Clwyd. In addition, my constituency has 1,100 more claimants than in 2001, making it one of the largest increases in benefit take-up in the whole country. Therefore, something important is going on. We have some understanding of what is happening, but not necessarily of why it is happening. The message, of which I ask Ministers to take due note, is about the dynamic of London and London poverty, and not only about incapacity benefit. It requires us to take a much more robust approach to the analysis and treatment of such problems in London than has hitherto been the case.

Justine Greening: As a fellow London MP, I am listening to the hon. Lady with some interest, and she has a very good point. Some of the incapacity benefit claimants who come to my surgery are highly skilled people who, for one reason or the other, have ended up on that benefit. The current system is not really structured to help them to get back into work. For example, they might be ex-IT consultants who were offered what, for them, would essentially be remedial, basic IT courses. Perhaps she has experience of a similar group of people.

Karen Buck: Disturbingly, there seems to have been another outbreak of all-party consensus. That is absolutely true, and I was about to refer to precisely that problem.
	In London and in my constituency in particular, there is an even sharper IB profile than can be seen in the country as a whole. The increase in mental illness and mental ill health is evidently a particularly strong driver of IB claims. In my constituency, 49 per cent. of IB claimants have a mental-health problem as their primary disorder, compared with 39 per cent. in the country as a whole. Claimants are younger, and—importantly—much more are black and minority-ethnic. That does not reflect the nature of the population disproportionately, but it demonstrates that we need a more sophisticated package of support than has sometimes been provided.

Sadiq Khan: My hon. Friend has spoken of problems that are specific to London. Is she aware that the number of recipients of IB with mental or behavioural disorders increased from 21 per cent. in 1995 to 39 per cent. in 2005?

Karen Buck: I was not aware of that statistic, but it makes perfect sense in the context of what I am saying.
	In my inner-city community and, I suspect, in others, we see a peculiarly compounded set of problems, leading to an extremely complex case load. Some people's first language is not English; some may have physical problems, which may be exacerbated by a range of mental-health problems. Let me return to what was said by the hon. Member for Putney (Justine Greening). The refugee communities in my constituency display all those characteristics, and define the problem very well. They include people with exceptionally high skills, and the level of education among them is significantly higher than that of the general population. Many of them have been victims of torture and have experienced the trauma of exile as well as their underlying conditions; many also have language difficulties. Nevertheless, they could contribute a great deal to the economy if they received the intensive support services that are needed to help them to work.
	Let me give some examples. Ali, who was an architect in Sudan, now has to deal with chronic depression—unsurprisingly—and with damage to his back and legs as a result of torture, but is perfectly capable of working as an architect. The amount of help that could help him to use his qualifications is very limited. Fatima, who was a midwife, is also extremely keen to return to work. She suffers from mental-health problems, depression and back pain. She would be able to return to work, but is frequently sent on skills courses and asked to consider employment in the retail industry. She has neither the training nor the application for that.
	It is not only refugee families that experience such problems. Dennis, whom I saw a few weeks ago, had a high-powered job in an advertising company until he had a nervous breakdown and was accepted as homeless. He is keen to return to work. Unfortunately, he turned down an offer of permanent accommodation because he was nervous about the area. The council then discharged its duty to house him, and now he is homeless on top of all his other problems.
	Historically, we in inner London have not enjoyed anything like the success that welfare programmes have generally achieved in other parts of the country. The new deal has been less successful in inner London, and there has been a much lower take-up of tax credits. A range of excellent programmes, which I strongly support, do not deliver in the area. There is a real danger that that will happen again. If we do not accept the particular complexity of case-load needs and the existence of multiple disadvantages, compounded in many cases by housing problems, we will not be able to deliver the outcomes that we want.
	That is even clearer when seen in the context of the London labour market, where we see a projected continued reduction in the level of entry to the lower-skilled jobs towards which so many claimants are directed in the first instance. If we do not raise our game in terms of the quality of skills training offered to those people, we will find ourselves trying to encourage them to return to a market that no longer exists for them.
	What worries me greatly is that unemployed people, those on income support and, indeed, IB claimants who are anxious to return to the labour market, or at least to be diverted from long-term benefit dependency, are being leapfrogged by globalisation. A wider labour market throughout the south-east of England—and, nowadays, throughout Europe and worldwide—is taking the jobs that are needed by so many of our disadvantaged individuals.
	Let me say a little about housing benefit. The Bill does not refer to the problems experienced by families in temporary accommodation in overcoming disincentives to work. The Department for Work and Pensions is running a small pilot scheme in Newham, "Working Futures", designed to help families paying the high rents that are charged for temporary accommodation and treated as if they were standard social housing rents for the purposes of benefit claims. Why is that a tiny single-borough pilot scheme?
	My borough contains 3,000 households in temporary accommodation, of which 92 per cent. are not in the labour market. That compares with 67 per cent. of all social housing tenants. We can therefore assume that, almost at a stroke, 1,000 households in a single borough could be encouraged into work if their housing benefit were treated differently. As it is, those people are asked to clear a rent of £400 or £450 every week before they can gain any benefits from working. Given the interaction of the tapers, it is no wonder that most people feel that that is simply not worth their while. There are 100,000 families in such accommodation in the country as a whole. We should be bold and sensible, and roll out the pilot scheme as quickly as possible. The Treasury is spending £400 or £450 a week on housing benefit, which is lining the pockets of private landlords and trapping people in benefit dependency.
	I generally welcome the roll-out of the standard housing allowance across the private sector, and strongly welcome the decision not to proceed with its extension into the social sector. The fundamental difference is that most private-sector tenants on housing benefit were already subject to shortfalls between rent and housing benefit. That is not the case in the social rented sector, so there would have been a huge number of losers. It would have been insane to proceed, and I am very pleased that the Government saw sense.
	I worry about the possibility that the local housing allowance in high-value areas could result in more homelessness. The pilot schemes show a disproportionate impact in different areas. We may find that it works perfectly well in some parts of the country, but leaves us with a headache in others. I hope that we will watch the situation closely.
	I, too, am extremely anxious about the sanctions for antisocial behaviour. I am pleased about the decision not to proceed along the lines proposed in 2003. I acknowledge that there will be pilot schemes, and that the proposal is infinitely better targeted and more carefully drawn up than the original version. I still believe, however, that in what will almost certainly be the majority of cases, because of the profile of families in social housing, families with children will find sanctions locking them further into a downward spiral of homelessness and debt. They simply displace the problem from one form of housing to another, without doing anything fundamental to deal with the problem.
	In that context, I am aware of young children with personality disorders, including autism, whose control over their behaviour is extremely limited, but there is virtually no provision for helping families with such children. They are almost entirely outwith the support system. It is right to do what we can to take such families and individuals into intensive rehabilitation. Sanctions in respect of tenancy have to apply, but I believe that this will not be a productive way forward.
	In summary, it is an excellent Bill with much to commend in it. I hope that it will be strengthened still further by a constructive set of proposals that will take us through Committee. I remain hopeful that in respect of one or two aspects of the Bill, there is still time for a rethink.

Angela Browning: I would like to focus on the part of the Bill that deals with incapacity benefit and on the problem of getting people with disabilities into work. A broad range of charities and organisations welcome and support the Bill, but that support is not unqualified. Those organisations and I have expressed many caveats about which we are concerned.
	In response to the Green Paper, I submitted a document on the specific subject of Asperger's syndrome and how to help adult sufferers of it into work. I am grateful that the Secretary of State met me in March to discuss that paper; and that, last week, the Minister for Employment and Welfare Reform met me and a representative from the National Autistic Society, who runs the Prospect employment scheme. We discussed how best to interface with the Government's plans, and particularly how best to get this group of people into work.
	Why Asperger's syndrome? There are reckoned to be about 332,000 people of working age who have an autistic spectrum disorder and are thought to be of average or above average intelligence. Of those who hold down a job, however, only 6 per cent. are in paid employment and among the high functioning end of the spectrum, the Asperger's group, only 12 per cent. That shows how low the figures are, yet we are talking about a group of people who are capable of education, in some cases right through to degree level.
	When I try to describe Asperger's syndrome to people, I try to get the mix right and it sometimes sounds a bit quirky. If we think back to the second world war and those highly intelligent people who worked at Bletchley Park and cracked the codes, quite a high percentage are reckoned to have had Asperger's. That tells us the level of expertise and intelligence that those with the syndrome may have. At the same time, such people can be difficult to place in work. Why? It is not because they are learning disabled in the recognised sense of having an IQ of under 70, but because autism often presents problems of communication and social interaction and difficulties associated with ritualistic behaviour. That, despite their educational and training experience, makes them least well equipped for today's workplace. Even some of the most basic jobs on offer today demand good, socially interactive skills. Employers often want people who are good team players with good communication skills. Even stacking shelves in a supermarket demands being able to communicate with customers, to be polite, personally to direct customers to where the soap powder is stocked and so forth. Social skills are a core part of just about every job advert and they are likely to be important in the interview.
	Placing those with Asperger's in work thus needs expertise. Those trying to help them must understand the condition from which those people suffer and must be able to develop their work-ready skills. As we described to the Minister last week, the Prospect scheme run by the National Autistic Society could be a valuable resource for the Government.
	I want to pick up a point that others, including my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond), have already mentioned—the fact that what we are talking about is not a cheap option. It is not something that can be read up in a textbook or that people can be briefed about for a few hours on a training course. It is not possible to learn how to help those people on that basis.
	From my experience of working with and advising adults with Asperger's, I am aware of current problems. Some are already engaged in the process of trying to get into employment through job centres and other organisations, but the weakness is that much more time needs to be spent on developing their skills in preparing them for interviews or preparing a CV, for example. All of that is pretty routine, but the vast majority really need someone present with them during the interview process. That means that the employer as well as the potential employee need to be coached and prepared for the interview to come. That is necessary if people with Asperger's are to get a fair chance to be considered for a vacancy on the same basis as everyone else.
	All too often—this is the key weakness—all the different stages are gone through with all the boxes ticked on job preparation, job coaching and preparing for the interview, but the problem is that those people seem to be left on their own to find the job in the first place. They are almost abandoned at that point. Finding the job is one of the hardest parts of the whole process, because in the main, we are talking about people who have great difficulty, if it is not within their own experience, in imagining what a job would be like. I recall one young man who repeatedly declared that he wanted to be an astronaut. It was totally unrealistic, but because he had seen it on television and identified what the job was, he felt quite safe and secure in saying that he wanted to be an astronaut. He could relate to that, but the truth is that he would have made an extremely good accountant.
	We know from the people with Asperger's who get into work that they are extremely reliable. As with other conditions, however, such as mental health problems or learning disabilities, they present certain challenges from the employer's point of view. Sometimes they take up management time once they are in post. That is why helping them into a sustainable job involves more than just helping them to find the job or getting them through the interview process. It is not about having someone to do the job for them—they can do it themselves—but having someone to troubleshoot on their behalf once they are accepted into the workplace. Occasionally, things can happen that are quite difficult for the staff to deal with, but if someone comes in to troubleshoot the situation, it is much easier to solve the problem so that the individual can stay in the job.
	As to how this particular group can benefit from the changes that the Government have outlined in the Bill and presented today, I am reassured that Ministers are now well versed about this condition and have a good understanding of what is needed. The challenge is whether they can procure enough specialist advice around the country to help that group of people access opportunities for work along with everyone else. The vast majority are desperate to work. Some may realistically be able to sustain their attention span only for part-time work, but whether it is just a few hours a week, whether it is part-time or full-time, those people deserve the same chance as everyone else.
	I welcome the Bill, which I view as a huge opportunity and step forward, so long as the Government are able to provide the necessary specialist support. That will require resources, but we discussed with Ministers how specialist provision—it is already there, albeit through limited providers—can help us to roll out help nationally. We should be able to ensure that within any county, district or area, however divided up, at least one disability employment adviser is peripatetic. If job centres knew that, perhaps on a Wednesday afternoon, the person who specialised in Asperger's syndrome would be available in the region, it would be a huge step forward in helping those people into work.
	I shall repeat one or two of the things that I included in the paper that I submitted to the Government, because they are important if the policy is to be successful. The worst thing that we can do is to set people up to fail. The impact on their mental well-being if they keep on trying and nothing happens cannot be overstated. However the Government approach that group, right from the beginning, they must distinguish those who cannot work from those who can, however limited the work, because for some people within that definition, as with those who have mental health conditions or learning disabilities, it would be grossly unfair to put them through the process of getting into paid work when that might not be the answer. They might, of course, benefit from doing voluntary work to which they do not have access now, so I would not want any of them to be excluded—to use the Minister's words—but identifying who can and who cannot benefit will be very important.
	Clear information is needed on what happens to people who go through the process, but for whom work ultimately fails. We must know how we will pick up the pieces, or we will leave behind more damage than we started out with. Some thought must be given to what happens if work fails, although I hope that that would involve only a small minority of people.

Mark Pritchard: My hon. Friend makes her points very well indeed. Does she agree that, if someone is employed and it does not quite work out, it undermines employers' confidence in perhaps considering other people in the future?

Angela Browning: Yes, my hon. Friend is exactly right. That is why the schemes that work for people with Asperger's involve briefing the employers and having a buddy in the work place who can help to broker some of the day-to-day problems that occur. Those problems can be very simple. For example, people whose behaviour is ritualistic might be prepared to eat only between certain times of the day. I know of one person who will only eat between 1.15 and 4 pm. So if such people are put on the 12 to 1 lunch shift, they go to lunch, but they do not eat. They do not say anything and cannot communicate the fact that they are under stress. They come back to work, and they are clearly in state of great anxiety in the afternoon. It is easy-peasy to sort out that problem—it can be done as soon as someone knows that that is the problem. Those are the sort of things that need to be taken into account in briefing employers, so that they know what the difficulties are, so that they do not occur in the first place. Where the system works and works well, it is a delight to see, but that group of people need special treatment from the beginning.
	I am pleased to see the Minister for Employment and Welfare Reform his place, as he has been extremely helpful to me on this subject.
	The Government will get support, but I am still not convinced that the cost of providing the specialist so-called niche services has yet been thoroughly thought through. I have mentioned the fact that subcontracting immediately takes a slice of money from what is the already high per capita cost of providing a good quality service. I urge the Government to consider how they can contract directly, without top-slicing a chunk of money that is wasted, with the organisations that know what they are doing and have already made a difference to the lives of adults with Asperger's syndrome. The Government can make so much more difference if they get it right.

Roger Berry: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Angela Browning). I congratulate her on her speech, and I am sure many other hon. Members agree with what she has said.
	I shall speak only to part 1, on the employment and support allowance and related matters. I congratulate Ministers on the consultation that has taken place in getting this far—I might be slightly more critical than that in a moment, but just let me get that in first. We had about a year's consultation before the Green Paper. We had a proper Green Paper exercise and submissions where made to the Secretary of State. We now have a Bill. It has been a long process; it has not been a rushed process, with a Bill emerging from the clear blue sky. I congratulate my colleagues on the fact that we have had plenty of time to discuss these issues before debating the Bill on Second Reading.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North (Ms Buck) made a comment about previous debates on incapacity benefit being toxic. My hon. Friend the Member for City of York (Hugh Bayley), who is no longer present, referred to the Welfare Reform and Pensions Act 1999. As someone who is prone not to scratch old sores, I will not go in that direction, but my hon. Friend the Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North suggested that there appeared to be a degree of welcome consensus on where we go from here. That is true, and it is not something that could have been said five or six years ago.
	The truth is that, because of events five or six years ago, many people in receipt of incapacity benefit and those who might receive it have become quite concerned about any new proposal and any change. They fear—dare I say it?—another cut in benefit, as under the previous Government and, sadly, as in 1999. Therefore, I start by praising the Bill, because of the clear assurance that it is not about cuts: it is about enabling disabled people and people with long-term sickness either to retain employment or to get back to work.
	The problem with the number of people in receipt of incapacity benefit has never been one of fraud—it is about the most fraud-free benefit that we have—and it has never been about the benefit being generous. It is far from generous. People on incapacity benefit are usually living in deep poverty. Those two things have never been the problem. The problem is that we need to remove the barriers that prevent a very large number of people in receipt of incapacity benefit who want to get back to work from doing so. The Green Paper's sub-title, "Empowering people to work", is precisely what part 1 is about and precisely why we should congratulate the Government on introducing it.
	We should never forget some of the basic facts that we are addressing. According to the Disability Rights Commission 48 per cent. of disabled people are out of work—virtually one in two. That increases to 79 per cent. for people with mental health problems, and it is 84 per cent. for people with learning disabilities. Those figures are shocking. They suggest that we must all address the current problems if we are serious about securing full employment for all.
	The link between being out of work and being in poverty is stark and obvious, and the House does not need me to repeat the facts at length. Let me simply say that, in relation to the Government's laudable policy and success in taking children out of poverty, 40 per cent. of children with a disabled parent today live below the poverty line. Almost one in two children of a disabled parent are in poverty. Yes, we must talk the language of the right to work; we must also talk the language of taking children and their families out of poverty. Therefore, the emphasis must be both on ensuring that people who want to work and can work receive the support to secure fulfilling employment and on ensuring that people who cannot work get a decent benefit. Those two approaches are essential if we are to make progress. The implication is that more support must be provided for disabled people in those two ways.
	Let me talk about securing employment. The Green Paper was a bit vague. The direction was absolutely right, but it was difficult to pin down one or two issues. The Bill is only marginally less vague than the Green Paper. If we are honest about it, that is the truth. I am not being critical; I am simply saying that that is the situation. The Government have rightly promised that draft regulations will be produced as soon as possible. To back up comments made by other Members—and because I feel strongly about this myself—I would be grateful if the Minister could say when draft regulations are to be made available. I hope that that will not be only for the first Committee sitting; a summer recess is coming up, during which we will all be busy working, and it would be good if we could have the draft regulations earlier rather than later.
	On which provisions will those drafts focus? I was talking to a specialist the other day, and she assured me that the Bill gives the Secretary of State—or all the Ministers in the Department—400 or so separate powers.  [Interruption.] No, exactly. Another specialist told me the next day, "No, there are 600 powers." I know not whether there are 400, 600 or 800 regulation-making powers in the Bill, but I know that there are a lot; there have to be a lot because the Bill is fairly vague. Can we have an assurance that these regulation-making powers will be published in draft form as soon as possible? When will that be, and which are the key areas that will be covered?
	We need to know fairly soon what are the criteria for determining into which category of employment and support allowance a recipient might fall. How do we distinguish between those two groups? I cannot answer that question. We need to have some information on benefits, in order to make sure that people will be better off and not worse off. We also need to know more about how conditionality will work. Who will make the decisions? How will the appeals process work? In respect of a Bill of this kind, it is understandable that we do not have such details before us today, but I urge Ministers to make them available as quickly as possible.
	On funding, the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton is absolutely right that in some circumstances supporting some disabled people back to work—or supporting them in retaining employment—might not be expensive but in other circumstances that can be quite expensive. If this job is to be done properly, the resources have to be found. I recall the Secretary of State saying at the time of the Green Paper that getting 1 million people back to work would save £7 billion for the Exchequer. I join the plea made by my hon. Friend the Member for City of York that a bit of recycling is a good idea. As people go back to work—

Danny Alexander: I totally agree with the hon. Gentleman's point, but it is not just a point about recycling money. It is also a point about the overall benefit to the economy. As the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development has said, active labour market programmes are a good way of spending money because they release more money back to the Exchequer. So we all win.

Roger Berry: I would not suggest that there is never a net cost, but the fact is that enormous benefits come from programmes of this kind. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for City of York pointed out, the UK's record in respect of spending on labour market programmes for disabled people is pitifully poor. The figure that I have in mind is a telling one: we spend 0.02 per cent. of national income—a fifth of the average European Union spend—on work-related programmes for disabled people. We can do better.
	There is another issue that I must again raise. I know that the Government are now spending £62 million on access to work. That programme is one of the best kept secrets; 75 per cent. of employers have never heard of it, but those who have heard of it know how important it is—and many Members know constituents who have benefited enormously from it. When the Department for Work and Pensions writes to me that, for every £1 million spent, the Treasury gets back £1.7 million, it makes me ask: can I be assured that the DWP and the Treasury have ongoing discussions to ensure that access to work gets more money? I am deeply concerned at the announcement that that initiative will no longer be available for Government Departments. I know that it has already ceased to be available in the DWP. Before the Government go ahead with that decision, I urge them to provide evidence that it will not have a harmful effect. It is perfectly reasonable to say that Government Departments have large budgets—

Anne McGuire: I can give my hon. Friend and the House the reassurance that the Office for Disability Issues has said that it will monitor the situation, but of course all Departments are covered by a disability equality duty, which should mean that there is no detriment.

Roger Berry: I accept that, but I tabled parliamentary questions to all Departments asking how many disabled staff in each Department received support from access to work. It is interesting that some Departments simply did not know, and that others provided figures. Indeed, one Department—the Department for Education and Skills—to its credit has an earmarked fund, the reasonable adjustments fund, to deal with such requests. All I am saying is that I would like to be assured that there will not be any incentive on line-managers not to appoint somebody because they have a disability. If half a dozen people are coming for an interview for a post all of whom can do the job equally well so that the decision as to which to appoint is a marginal one, if one person will cost more money to employ because they are disabled, I would be worried, even in respect of a Government Department, that there might be an in-built bias to discriminate against that disabled person. As long as the situation is being monitored carefully, I will happily accept my hon. Friend's assurance that I have completely misunderstood the problem and that such situations will never arise—but I will still be looking for it, just in case. Ring-fencing funds for that purpose—which is apparently what the DFES does—might be a way around that.
	Where are the 1 million jobs to come from? I have only two minutes left, but let me make a few comments about the important role of employers. I attended a breakfast meeting with the hon. Member for Angus (Mr. Weir).  [Interruption.] I attended a breakfast on Thursday morning along with one or two Members—I can recall one of them at least—with the New Beginnings coalition, whose aim is to identify and help to dismantle the barriers faced by disabled people in employment, and particularly to ensure that employers are engaged in welfare reform. It is an organisation that my Front-Bench Friends will be well aware of, and it does sterling work. A number of issues were raised in relation to the employers' role, and I think that it is fair to say that there was a general feeling that most employers are not engaged in the welfare reform exercise very much at all. There was a comment to the effect that as employers to some degree interface with the Department of Trade and Industry, could we pass on the message that we know that the DWP has the major role to play in this, but the DTI might also put in some effort to using its good offices to persuade employers to adopt good practice in this regard?
	There is a range of issues to do with using the private and voluntary sector in pathways to work. I have said for quite some time that, sadly or otherwise, I have often found that there are private and voluntary sector organisations that are far better placed to give support than many of our Jobcentre Plus offices; that is the truth. There are some very good voluntary sector organisations, but they need to have good contractual arrangements. In an advertisement that I saw in  SocietyGuardian last Wednesday—if I can mention  The Guardian without the Whips getting too irate—for the new pathways to work contracts, the key contractors were offered contracts of three years-plus, but if there are subcontractors, I hope that they get more than mere one-year contracts under this system. Organisations that provide such support must be able to work in decent conditions, not least because the good ones employ lots of disabled people, which is why they are very good at providing the service.

Greg Hands: It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Kingswood (Roger Berry), who made a characteristically passionate and well-informed speech. I want to make a few brief remarks about cancer patients, and others facing long-term illness, before moving on to consider the housing benefit proposals in some detail and the proposal to introduce the new local housing allowance.
	On cancer patients and their families, carers and supporters, I have in my constituency both Macmillan Cancer Support and CLIC Sargent, with which I do quite a lot of work on ways to reduce the non-medical costs of cancer and long-term care. There are some depressing statistics. In respect of those aged 55 or less, seven out of 10 households with a member suffering from cancer suffer a loss of income, with the average income fall being in the region of 50 per cent. I applaud the campaigns to reduce those costs, which are very expensive, especially in London, and include parking fees and congestion charging, as well as other medical expenses. We need to look closely at lightening the load on cancer patients and those close to them.
	I turn to housing benefit and the new local housing allowance. Housing benefit is an important benefit and it is vital to scrutinise it and the proposed changes properly. It is currently paid to 4 million households in the UK——mainly low-income tenants but also people of working age and pensioners. Only 20 per cent. of those 4 million live in privately rented properties—the primary sector under consideration in this Bill—and a key test for the future of these regulations will be when and if they are applied to social housing.
	The gist of the new local housing allowance scheme is that it pays a flat rate that varies only according to the size of the family and the area in which the tenant or household live. That contrasts with the current system, under which housing benefit is related to the total rent of a house or flat. Under the new LHA system, tenants have a chance to shop around for cheaper property and pocket the difference, or to trade up and make up the extra rent themselves. As I understand it, that scheme will be introduced only for future tenants and that existing ones will, in effect, be "grandfathered", at least for the time being.
	The Bill also allows benefit reduction for those who commit antisocial behaviour and who refuse help in order to reform their behaviour. I shall not dwell on the idea for too long, but it has potential. As currently expressed, the scheme will kick in only after eviction and put the onus merely on going on a rehabilitation course. We could explore that idea further. In my constituency, too many tenants and residents have suffered for too long from the effects of antisocial behaviour, and they have seen little action from the outgoing Labour council in the past 20 years to combat the problems. The new Conservative council in Hammersmith and Fulham is certainly taking such problems very seriously.
	In general, I greatly support initiatives to help those who are less well off in what are otherwise prosperous areas—a typical situation in large parts of inner London, including Regent's Park and Kensington, North, to which reference was made earlier. For example, I took part in the launch of the new Hammersmith and Fulham credit union a couple of months ago, which is a scheme designed precisely to help the less well-off in an area that is otherwise superficially very prosperous. However, a constituency such as mine contains many very successful people, as well as many who are struggling. In my view, otherwise wealthy areas that contain a large number of poor people have suffered badly under this Government through, for example, the changes to the index of local deprivation, the capping of council tax benefit at band E over a six-year period, the fixing of funding formulae against London, and so on.
	As a former councillor, I have a lot of experience in dealing with housing benefit cases in my own constituency; in fact, I used to represent tenants at housing benefit tribunals. The "HB regs", as they used to be known, have evolved somewhat since the mid-1990s and have been updated many times, so I had to do a little updating myself before taking part in this debate. But I know from experience that changes to housing benefit need to be properly thought through and carefully piloted, and I certainly welcome the piloting approach that has been taken. Housing benefit has been particularly subject to fraud and poor administration over the years, as witnessed, for example, by problems in London councils during the late 1990s. We need to approach reform with caution, but reform is much needed.

Danny Alexander: Does the hon. Gentleman share my concern about how the areas in which the local housing allowance is being set are being decided? In a constituency such as his, which has well-off and not so well-off areas, the LHA could be set too high or too low for the people living there.

Greg Hands: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. He is right and he makes the point well; indeed, I shall come to that in a moment.
	I strongly support the general principles referred to in the Green Paper and agree that we need to get tenants to take more responsibility for their own financial affairs. That said, I shall now outline a few difficulties that I can foresee with the new LHA. Much depends on what constitutes a region or an area and, although it is obvious what is meant from the pathfinder studies in the nine local authorities, it is otherwise by no means clear. There are particular problems in London in setting the level of benefit. What constitutes a decent, normal market or median rent in London, given the huge discrepancies in rent levels in different boroughs across the capital? For example, rents in Barking and Dagenham or Havering are far lower than in Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea or Hammersmith and Fulham. Even within a very small local authority area such as my own, the difference in rent levels between Fulham—around the Hurlingham club—and in Shepherd's Bush can be huge, so it is very important that we define such areas well. I should be grateful for guidance from the Minister on this issue.
	If such areas are made too big, the natural reaction may well be for people to move from expensive boroughs to cheaper ones, or from more expensive areas within a given borough to cheaper ones. Some might view that as desirable and say that it is merely tenants following market forces, but I am not so sure. If the different parts of London are to remain sustainable and solid communities, we need a range of people living in each. Pricing the poor out of the centre of London, or out of places such as Fulham, could have consequences that we need to consider carefully before going down that route.

Justine Greening: My hon. Friend is making a very good point. As recently as last Friday, I met the head teacher of my local school—the Elliot school—and one of the things that she is very passionate about is the fact that the children whom she teaches constitute a very diverse group. My hon. Friend is right to highlight the danger associated with this legislation. We need to be careful to ensure that we understand its impact.

Greg Hands: I thank my hon. Friend. It is important to be careful both in setting the areas and in defining exactly how we are going to arrive at the median rent level. Of course, a big range will create much more potential for people moving out of expensive areas and into cheaper ones. I urge the Government—in London, at least—to make the regional considerations as small as possible and to make the areas as small as can reasonably be assessed. Indeed, the same should perhaps be done in other parts of the country.
	In the Green Paper, the Government state:
	"tenants are able to compare how much support is available towards their housing costs in different areas and for different property sizes."
	That is probably a great thing—we do want tenants to start looking around and assessing the economics of particular properties—but we do not want to encourage too much mobility out of the better-off areas.

Sadiq Khan: Does the hon. Gentleman think that, if tenants are thinking about the price that they have to pay for accommodation, it will make them more responsible and lead them away from receiving allowances and toward paying rent themselves?

Greg Hands: I agree entirely and in principle that this is a very good reform. I am simply saying that in constituencies such as ours, exactly how we define the median rent level and the area concerned needs to be approached with care.
	We should also consider the potential for arrears. Although the Green Paper highlights the expectation that tenants set up standing orders to pay rent, there is clearly no compulsion to do so. Moreover, no consideration has been given to how councils might play a part in setting up such arrangements, or to the costs that might be involved to councils in offering services in this area if people get into trouble. In creating individual responsibility, councils might need to have resources to help such people get through the transitional period. I welcome the commitment given at the start of this debate to extending throughout the country the support being made available in the pathfinder projects to help tenants in more difficult and challenging circumstances to make that transition.
	I want to talk about an issue that has not really been touched on this debate—the potential for overcrowding. There is a real risk, which has not been totally borne out by the pathfinder projects, that many tenants will trade down their accommodation, move into smaller premises, take the higher level of local housing allowance, save money on the local allowance by paying less rent than they really should, pocket the difference and use it for something else. Some might say that that is fantastic and that it encourages more responsibility on behalf of that tenant, but if it leads to more overcrowding in places such as inner-city London and my constituency, that could be an unfortunate consequence. I would be grateful for the Minister's views on what sort of protection can be put in place against people who are, in effect, moving to a much smaller property than they should be.
	One of the most interesting aspects of this debate is the potential for extending the provisions to the 80 per cent. of housing benefit recipients who are in social housing. I have two practical concerns. I know that this aspect is not in the Bill, but there is the potential to introduce it. Having spoken to my council, I know that it believes that the local housing allowance would cost more to administer than current arrangements for its council tenants. It also thinks that arrears would probably increase in the social housing sector and that probably some transitional help would be needed for councils.
	I would be interested to see some of the results for the nine pathfinder authorities. Regrettably, we have not yet got the final report from those authorities—I do not think that it is due till the end of the year—to enable us to assess the situation properly. There are some mixed experiences if one compares, say, Lewisham with Conwy, which I suppose is not that surprising when one considers the mix of housing stock and tenants in the two areas. Apparently, in the pathfinder areas, 56 per cent. of landlords said that the new local housing allowance scheme would make them less likely to let to housing benefit tenants due to fear or experience of arrears.
	In answer to the hon. Member for Tooting (Mr. Khan), I think that we need to start giving people responsibility for their financial futures. Undoubtedly, some tenants will struggle with an incoming payment and outgoing payment when previously the cash flow was effectively hidden from them and managed on their behalf. But surely, as my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition says repeatedly, we need to start trusting people and getting them less dependent on the state to do everything for them. Let us be bold and back the new local housing allowance.
	In conclusion, we need to support this scheme, but we need to look at perhaps three or four areas where there are concerns. I would like the Minister to address them in his summing up. The first is the potential for mobility, both within an area of inner London and out of inner London into outer London. Secondly, there is the potential for the overcrowding of tenants to save money. Thirdly, there is the potential for greater arrears. Finally, there is the potential for greater administration costs, especially if the two schemes are going to be run in tandem, which I think is what the proposal states. Effectively there will be a lot of historic existing tenants on the existing housing benefit system, plus a large group on the new local housing allowance. I hope that the Minister will address those points.
	We should welcome the new local housing allowance. We need to move ahead with caution. The current system is too susceptible to fraud, too complex and destroys individual aspiration. It is time for something better, but we still need a little caution.

Janet Dean: I thank Ministers and officials for the intensive consultation that has taken place over recent weeks. As a member of a number of all-party groups and the chairman of the all-party group on lupus, as well as the all-party autism group, I know how much effort has been put into discussing the proposed reforms with MPs and patient groups. There is widespread support for the proposals in the Bill, which bring a real opportunity to change the way in which we look at disability and work. Although pathways to work has begun to change the culture of the system, employers need to be encouraged to retain and accommodate staff who may become ill or suffer an injury. The system needs to enable people to play as active a part in work as possible. Individuals need to have faith that the process is working for them.
	I agree with the charity Rethink when it refers to people needing
	"support and encouragement rather than negativity and discrimination".
	I believe that the new system will be judged on its ability to focus on individuals' needs. In order to do that, there will need to be increased training for Jobcentre Plus staff and for doctors carrying out capabilities assessments. Although I recognise that, as now, people will be assessed according to how the illness or disability affects them, rather than which condition they have, there is a need for those who interview or examine individuals to have some knowledge of different conditions. They will need to recognise that those who have a learning disability or who are autistic do not need rehabilitation, but, as others have said, may need long-term support in employment or when there are changes in that employment.
	Employees at Jobcentre Plus and personal advisers will need to recognise that many people, especially those with a mental health problem, may have their condition worsened if they are placed under too much pressure. Advisers will need to know that long-term conditions, some of which, such as lupus, are not well known, will vary between individuals. Indeed, conditions such as lupus do not just affect individuals differently; those who have the condition may feel quite well one day and be confined to their home the next. Some people with lupus have depression, or they may have memory or cognitive problems because of the cerebral involvement of their illness. Those who are assessing and working with those individuals will need to be aware of the varying nature of such conditions. The issue of training is not covered in the Bill and I would be grateful for reassurance that there will be such training in specific impairments, such as autistic spectrum disorders.

Alison Seabeck: My hon. Friend is talking about the range of different effects that illnesses can have on different people, particularly people with lupus. Does she agree that, as part of the assessment, there is some importance in interviewing not only the person with the illness, but the carers of that person, who are often better able to describe what is going with that individual?

Janet Dean: I certainly agree. Indeed, sometimes the person with a particular condition underestimates the problems that they have with it, so having a partner or a carer with them can be of great help.
	Understanding of autism is still lacking among professionals. If the employment and support allowance is to work for people with an autistic spectrum disorder, more training for personal advisers, jobcentre staff and health professionals is essential. A tiered system of training could be developed to ensure that all personal advisers had a basic level of knowledge and could call on people at a regional level for more in-depth knowledge. Any organisations that are in receipt of contracts to work with individuals should also have adequate understanding of the needs of people with different impairments.
	As the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Angela Browning) said earlier, about 260,000 of the estimated 330,000 people of working age in the UK with an autistic spectrum disorder are thought to be of average or above average intelligence and yet only 6 per cent. of all people with an autistic spectrum disorder are in full-time paid employment. We need to do better. However, unlike some of the disabilities, once a suitable job is found for someone with an autistic spectrum disorder, it is essential that continuing support is available while that person is in work. Because of difficulties in social interaction and communication, working environments can present many problems. Regular meetings or access to someone to call on can prevent the breakdown of a job and the sense of failure that may follow that.
	That support to individuals in employment is best delivered by specialist agencies that have a deep level of understanding, as well as a commitment to ongoing support. For those with an autistic spectrum disorder, the National Autistic Society's prospects service has a proven success record of achieving lasting employment. Several patients' organisations have expressed their concern that contracts are tending to be awarded to larger, less specialised providers who may not be able to provide effective support for individuals with particular needs.
	It will be necessary to monitor closely the categories of those who are found employment and who receive support in that employment. In that respect, there is concern about outcome-based contracts, if that outcome relates to numbers rather than the detailed analysis of those who have received help and are continuing to receive ongoing support. There is a great deal that the voluntary sector can offer in the provision of services. I was particularly interested to hear of the Citizens Advice suggestion that it and other organisations could be involved in the delivery of certain services, such as providing independent financial advice to people who are considering a return to work or advice to employers who need to know about the new benefit structure and their rights and responsibilities to employees with mental or physical health problems. Such use of the voluntary sector would also bring reassurance to those with an illness or disability.
	One area of concern that has been raised by several organisations, and this evening, is that much of the detail of the legislation has been left to regulations. May we have a reassurance that sufficient time will be allowed for consultation on that detail? The effectiveness and responsiveness of the new system will depend on the detailed application of the legislation.
	Another point of concern is the extension of the use of sanctions from attendance at interview to involvement in work-related activity, especially since it is suggested that that work-related activity could be changed by a personal adviser at any time. Sanctions should be applied only by qualified staff who understand the medical conditions or disability of the individual who might lose some financial benefit, rather than private or voluntary sector providers. If necessary, reference should be made to a person with greater knowledge of the condition, such as a hospital consultant.
	Care will need to be taken before applying sanctions in all cases. It will be necessary to consider the impact of a person's disability on his or her ability to comply. For example, there must be consideration of whether people with a learning disability can understand what is required of them and whether they receive sufficient support to enable them to comply with the requirement.
	I welcome the Secretary of State's earlier reassurance about those with mental illnesses, but Rethink has concerns about clause 17, whereby people could be disqualified from receiving ESA if their capability of work was reduced through their own misconduct, their failure to take medical advice without good cause, or their failure to observe the prescribed rules of behaviour. Patients with mental health problems might cease medication because of side effects. They could present with unusual behaviour, or might not attend for interview because of their condition.
	People with autism might appear to be not engaging with the process because they have difficulty with social interaction. The difficulty that people with an ASD have with social communication can affect verbal and non-verbal communication, so facial expressions and tones of voice might cause misunderstanding. Along with difficulties with social imagination, which includes planning ahead and the flexibility of thought, those problems make it difficult to acquire and maintain a job. It is important that great care is taken when applying sanctions to those with chronic, long-term conditions that might fluctuate, such as lupus.

Lynne Jones: Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the best ways of helping people to get work-ready and to overcome the stigma that many experience when trying to get jobs from employers, especially if they have mental health problems, is for them to do voluntary work? Does she share my concern that the Department for Work and Pensions recently ruled that people doing voluntary work could no longer receive payments for lunch, or free lunches, while doing such work without that affecting their benefits, which is hardly in accordance with the social inclusion agenda?

Janet Dean: I agree entirely. It might be that some people with long-term conditions who would find it difficult to retain employment would be better advised to undertake voluntary activity when their illness allows, rather than feeling pressured to enter paid employment in which they might be destined to fail, which would have a consequential negative effect on their well-being. Although we want all people to have the opportunity to work, we must accept that the loss of benefit, however little that benefit is, in some ways, can cause some people great concern and make their condition worse. Voluntary work can be a real bonus to many people.
	We must make sure that the Bill is seen as a positive effort to change the lives of people with illness and disability and to ensure that everyone can reach their full potential. Sanctions should be a last resort that are kept only for those who try to abuse the system. The success of ESA will be in the detail. We will need to ensure that staff are properly trained and that the focus is on the individual who needs advice and support to find and keep a job.

Robert Syms: It is a pleasure to contribute to the debate, which has been extremely thoughtful and well considered. We have heard from a lot of people who are experts in the field, although I do not pretend to be one of those. I was certainly impressed with the speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Angela Browning), who certainly has great specialist knowledge. She and the hon. Member for Kingswood (Roger Berry) made very good contributions to the debate.
	I would first like to talk about the antisocial behaviour aspect of the Bill. All of us have met constituents in our surgeries with antisocial neighbours on their estates. We thus write letters to the chief executive of the local council and feel frustrated not only for ourselves, but on behalf of our constituents. The right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) did us all a great service with his private Member's Bill on withdrawing benefit from those who displayed antisocial behaviour. I was initially pleased with the measures in the Bill, but the more I consider them, the more I think that they are rather disappointing.
	The withdrawal of housing benefit is to be a threat after eviction, but I do not think that the power will be used very often. We heard from the Secretary of State earlier that the Government will be sensitive to situations involving children. The power will be used in very few cases. There would be merit in allowing local authorities to use housing benefit as a lever before they reach the point of eviction, largely because that might present the opportunity to modify people's behaviour before they lose their home and their families become homeless.
	The hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Danny Alexander) made a good point about schemes that local authorities can run to provide rehabilitation and to change people's behaviour. It would be far better to have several sanctions that local authorities could use to improve people's behaviour, rather than the measure in the Bill, which can be used only after an eviction. As we know, an eviction is always an extreme case. I cannot foresee that the sanction would be used in very many cases. I do not understand the logic of the measure, so I hope that my Front-Bench colleagues will examine it in Committee.

Paul Rowen: Given that such people would have already been evicted once, does the hon. Gentleman agree that a more effective sanction would be a probationary tenancy, which would allow a local authority to remove an offending person immediately without going through the rigmarole of removing benefits?

Robert Syms: The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. My central point about the antisocial behaviour measure is that although it sounds tough, it will not be used very often. If the powers were a little more sweeping, chief executives of local authorities and housing departments would be in a much better position to tackle the problem. The way in which neighbours are dealt with is one of the biggest problems that many of our constituents face.
	I welcome the measures in the Bill on benefit fraud, including the "two strikes and you're out" approach, for which it is sensible to extend the relevant period from three to five years. I listened carefully to my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith and Fulham (Mr. Hands), who spoke with great experience about housing benefit and the local housing allowance. Generally speaking, I am in favour of the way in which the Government are going. It is sensible to move towards a more market-related solution, although I understand my hon. Friend's real concerns about how large a region or area is. London has specific problems because great discrepancies can be seen even a few miles apart. I certainly welcome the suggestion of further trials. However, in any sort of use of the welfare state, it is important, when possible, to increase the amount of personal responsibility that people have. We should not always assume that people have to rely on the state to do everything for the outcomes that they want.
	When I first read the figures for incapacity benefit, I was rather shocked that 2.71 million people, or 8 per cent. of the working age population, are on incapacity benefit and that more than half those people had been on it for more than five years. I was also a little shocked to find that 40 per cent. of those people had mental or behavioural problems, because that is an extremely high figure. I also noted that the number of young people on incapacity benefit has gone up by 71 per cent. There is evidently a big problem.
	As we have heard throughout the debate, if we are to tackle poverty and social exclusion, and deal with child poverty in particular, we must bite the bullet by tackling incapacity benefit and doing our best to get as many people as possible into the work force. The Government have set quite an ambitious target, whether the figure is 1 million or the 640,000 that my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond) cited, but until we know all the details—problems with draft regulations have been mentioned—it is difficult to be too specific about several aspects of the Bill.
	Early intervention is important. There has been little mention of the national health service, but we all know that some people on incapacity benefit are waiting for operations. They are thus waiting for the NHS to assist them by putting them in a position in which they can go back to work—so it is important to have joined-up government.
	I welcome the fact that the Government are allowing private, voluntary or not-for-profit organisations to deliver some of the pathway projects, although I understand the concerns raised by my hon. Friend about their not being given enough latitude to bring innovation into the system. That is one thing that the private and voluntary sector can do.
	There is an ambitious programme. According to the Library, even Poole has 3,200 people on incapacity benefit—about 6 per cent. of the working age population. That is a lot of people. If the Government's target is to be met, about 1,000 people will have to move from incapacity benefit into work. As my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton said, it is important that to do the assessment, there is a range of people who understand the problems that people have. With mental difficulties and behavioural problems, it is important that niche services are provided, so that we get it right.
	As was mentioned earlier, the problem is that if we do not get it right, there are consequences both for the individuals if they go back into work and do not stick to a particular course, and for employers. If employers take on someone with a particular problem and it works out, they may go back and take on a second, third or fourth person. However, if it does not work out, the whole scheme may fail. It is important that we do not just focus on individuals. We also have to focus on employers and educate them. Clearly, if we are to mobilise a lot of people on incapacity benefit—many of them have specific problems, and niche problems—it will be a big job to educate employers on how to deal with that and to get the best out of them.
	Broadly, I welcome the Government's direction. Much will depend on the details, and the detail in regulation. I am sure that my hon. Friends on the Front Bench will test many of the propositions in Committee. There is a degree of consensus, and it is important that we give this large number of people the right and the opportunity to get back into work, because of the impact that it will have on their lives, the state of their mental health and so on. As we all know, work is important. It must be very difficult for those who are denied it who feel that they have been sentenced to many years on benefit, without the tools to get back into work and to join in many of the things that the rest of us who have worthwhile jobs do.

Anne Begg: I welcome the tone of the debate on both sides of the House. It has been a positive discussion. That reflects the briefing papers that I received—perhaps other hon. Members were also deluged by them—from various organisations with an interest in welfare reform. There has been a general welcome for the principles of the Bill, although inevitably there was concern about the detail.
	I want to concentrate on the first half of the Bill, which deals with disability and getting people with disabilities and ill health back into the workplace. Many other things in the Bill are also important, such as provisions covering lone parents, people over 50 and housing benefit. I am afraid that I do not have the expertise in housing benefit that my hon. Friend the Member for Regent's Park and Kensington, North (Ms Buck) has. She said that she had an unhealthy interest in housing benefit. I am glad to say that I do not, but I do know that it is very important to many of our constituents. They are often in a benefits trap because of housing benefit. That is a particular problem for those in the private rented sector. Their rent is so high that they cannot afford to get into work, but they cannot get a council house because, although their housing provision is extremely expensive, there is nothing wrong with it and the council think that they are adequately housed. However, the problems that my constituents face are nothing compared with those that the constituents of London MPs must face. I do not know how people can afford to live and work in London, because of the huge cost of housing.
	It is important that the debate has been couched in the tone that has been used today. It has taken a long time for us to get to this stage. I remember a journalist at the last Queen's Speech saying that the Government would have to face down their rebels on welfare reform and that there would be huge opposition to it. Instead, we have discovered that there is no major opposition on either side of the House. That is a tribute to officials and Ministers at the Department for Work and Pensions, who have managed to change the tone of the debate by talking about welfare reform as a positive thing that will be good for people. They have said that it needs to be done, and that as a result, people will be better off.
	Like my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Roger Berry), I have spoken to disabled people and they have been apprehensive about what reform means. MPs take reform to mean change for the better, but in the collective memory of many disabled people, "reform", "welfare reform" and "benefit reform" have meant changes that have resulted in them being worse off, with a worse service and less money from the Government. It has taken a long time to change their perception and to build up trust in the Government's actions as being something to their benefit, not to their detriment.
	One way in which the Government have done that is by having examples of good practice that they can point to. Those examples are not only in the pathways to work projects. Many hon. Members mentioned specific programmes in their constituencies which have worked. Aberdeen Foyer has been incredibly successful in dealing with predominantly young people who live on the margins of society and who are often recovering drug addicts. It has delivered a number of welfare-to-work programmes, including progress to work and getting people to the job-ready stage, capable of doing a work-focused interview and getting into work. The examples exist to show that such success is possible. Whether it is down to DWP staff themselves, the third sector or, in some cases—this is particularly true in Glasgow—the private sector, there are models that work. That has begun to allay some of the fears of many disabled people.
	It is also important that reform is not about saving money. Although ultimately it should save the Government money—partly because when people get off benefit and into work they will contribute to the Exchequer in the form of paying taxes, rather than taking from it—that is always a side issue. It must never be the central issue for any kind of welfare reform. The aim is to make welfare work for people, and for it not to be a barrier.
	One of the big disincentives to work has been the welfare system itself. We talk about the different barriers that disabled people face, but disability or ill health is often not the primary barrier to disabled people getting into work. Sometimes that is three, four or five strands down the list. Child care and travel to work may be bigger barriers than a disability. There is no doubt, however, that the welfare system is one of the main barriers to work. That cannot be a good system.

Danny Alexander: I agree about the barriers to work in the welfare system. Does the hon. Lady share my concern about the taper for housing benefit and council tax benefit? On going into work, people find that they lose their benefit at the rate of 85p in every pound, so the incentive to work is much less than it should be.

Anne Begg: It is important that work must always pay. That is why I always have been a very strong supporter of the tax credit system; it has made sure that people in work are obviously better off than those out of work. Whether a taper at 85 per cent. for housing benefit or council tax benefit is correct—perhaps it is on the sharp side and could be flattened slightly—the Government's overriding concern must be to ensure that there are no disincentives in the welfare system, and that people do not think that they are working for nothing. I do not accept the argument, "Well I'm not working for £20 a week extra," because people are in fact working for £200 or whatever it is in benefit, plus the extra. If everybody took the attitude that they were working only for any amount above what they would receive on benefit, we would not have enough people in the workplace to pay for benefit for others.
	Work in itself has value, not just because of social contact and many other reasons, but because it is easier for someone in work to get a better job. I am not as critical as many about people coming off incapacity benefit and going into entry-level jobs, because once they have on their CV the fact that they are able to sustain that job, they will be able to move up the chain of employment skills. They certainly cannot go in further up that chain without the experience that they gain from being in work.
	Some organisations have expressed concerns that the Government must address. When pathways to work is rolled out across the country it is crucial that it must not be "pathways lite"—a watered down version. It has been so successful because of the investment and dedicated work of those in the DWP and in organisations brought in to provide the employment programmes.
	I will not go on about what will be in the regulations, because that has been covered by other hon. Members, although all the organisations that wrote to me were certainly keen to have sight of them, and for the matter to be addressed.
	I was going to say a great deal about the role of rehabilitation and preventive measures, but I could not possibly follow the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for City of York (Hugh Bayley), who summed up everything that I had planned to say on the issue far more eloquently. Employers have a responsibility to ensure that those who are already in work do not fall out of work, to keep them in work for as long as possible and to adapt the workplace to ensure that they remain.
	I have some questions about work-related activity. Is there a role for somebody to become a perpetual volunteer? Some hon. Members have said that there must somehow be an end to work-related activity, when somebody must enter a job—but that might not be the best solution for everybody. I think of someone who has a progressive condition who would not want to be written off completely and be on the support element alone, and who would want the employment support element of benefit. Volunteering could provide enough hours to keep them in a workplace of sorts. Volunteering is not necessarily less valuable than paid work, so there might be a case for allowing someone to remain on the higher level of benefit but continually to have a volunteering role. That would overcome the problem that some face of putting their benefit in jeopardy as a result of volunteering.
	I am also interested in the Government's comments on the backdating of holding benefit. I accept that holding benefit will be at jobseeker's allowance levels for those who are going on to the employment and support allowance, because that is at the level drawn by other unemployed people—but what about people who have been diagnosed with a terminal illness or have a rapidly progressive condition? If they have to wait three months to receive the higher benefit and it is not backdated, it might be too late for them. My hon. Friend the Minister for Employment and Welfare Reform is nodding, so hopefully there is an answer to that.
	Finally I want to talk about where things are still very difficult and specific help must be given—in the area of mental health. Every organisation that has written to me, and all those to which I spoke last summer when I was consulting on issues in the White Paper, mentioned stigma and discrimination, and the fact that employers need to change their attitudes. That is still regarded by many with mental health problems as the biggest barrier to work. I do not have problems with conditionality, provided that it is there for a purpose, that it is not punitive and that the support is right. We often heard complaints that that would be a problem with the new deal for the young unemployed, but it turned out not to be so. Provided that the programme in which people are engaged is of a sufficiently high standard, conditionality does not become a problem, and instead acts as an incentive to get people through the door and over the threshold so that they can see what they can do to open up life for themselves.

Several hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Clearly a large number of hon. Members are seeking to catch my eye. If Members take considerably less than 12 minutes each, it would be very helpful and allow me to call many more Members.

Michael Weir: I should like to say at the outset that the Scottish National party and Plaid Cymru are not opposed in principle to the objectives of the legislation.
	In my experience, most people on disability benefits genuinely want to work, but there are many barriers to that aim and it is those rather than a wish to languish on benefits that prevent them from doing so. In so far as the legislation genuinely helps and encourages people, providing support for them to get into work and, crucially, to retain work, it will have our wholehearted support.
	One problem, however, is that we are effectively debating in a vacuum, because we do not yet have the regulations that will set out the detail of the system. Mencap makes the telling point in its briefing that the Bill refers to regulations 243 times in its 73 pages, which is more than three times a page. I appreciate that the Minister has said that the regulations will be published prior to considering the Bill in Committee and that is welcome, but I reiterate that we need to see them well before that stage so that we can consider the detail and so that those of us who are lucky enough to serve on the Committee do not have to deal with them there and then.
	The hon. Member for Aberdeen, South (Miss Begg) made some very good points. Like her, I arranged meetings with groups in my constituency and throughout Tayside to discuss the White Paper when it was first published. The meetings were useful. In some cases I was able to reassure people about some of the more wild stories. One headline in  Third Force News read "Welfare Reform Plans Outrage Disability Groups". The reason behind it was a comment made by the Secretary of State about more responsibility and increased obligations. In the early stages, there was much concern among groups representing disabled people that the reforms would impact seriously on them. As it turned out, as is often the case, once the White Paper was published and looked at, people realised that it was not as bad as had been trailed.
	The meetings were also useful because they enabled me to make a submission to the consultation. One of the principal concerns, which is reflected in various briefings that have been sent to us, is about the scope of the personal capability assessment. Every hon. Member must have had a number of constituents raising concerns about the operation of the current system and claims of inadequacy of the assessment by the medical practitioner appointed by the DWP. It is interesting but hardly surprising to note the findings of the report "Paying the Price: the real costs of illness and disability" for Citizens Advice Scotland, which noted that there was a 63 per cent. success rate among its clients who appealed against a decision. That must suggest that a significant proportion of decisions were incorrect in the first instance.
	In particular, many of those I consulted were concerned that the people assessing them did not have sufficient expertise in their condition. Many felt that they were given a cursory examination by a complete stranger who lacked relevant experience, and that is reflected in briefings. For example, Mencap said:
	"The reform of the PCA must be carried out with expertise in learning disability factored in at every stage."
	Rethink said:
	"People should have a choice as to whether examinations, assessments or interviews occur at their own homes or at examination centres."
	Macmillan Cancer Relief made the very good point that people suffering from terminal cancer cannot be expected to go through the same assessment procedure as others. They should have the choice of being assessed at home, rather than in an examination centre. The more cynical could say that all those organisations are making special pleas for their own groups, but the crucial point is that they are all making the same pertinent argument. Whatever form the PCA takes, we must ensure that whoever carries out the assessment has expertise in the particular illness or disability from which the subject of the interview suffers.
	Rethink makes an additional point that people who suffer from severe mental illness may not open letters or answer the telephone, not through ill will, but often through forgetfulness or disorganisation. That is a particular concern, as anyone who is deemed to fail to co-operate at various stages could face benefit sanctions. A reasonable person would conclude that allowances should be made for such situations, but I encountered a similar problem with a constituency case, related not to incapacity benefit but tax credits. My constituent has a bipolar mental illness, and for long periods she does not open mail or, in fact, deal with any of her affairs. She failed to fill in a form to renew her tax credits, and they were stopped. She received demands for repayment of tax credits, even though it appears that she would have been entitled to them had she filled in the form. The Department is insisting on repayment. I approached officials in the Department, but I was told that they had absolutely no discretion in the matter because the form had not been filled in.
	I appreciate that that case does not relate directly to the Bill, but it shows what can happen when regulations do not take into account the specifics of particular conditions. Clearly, such situations are much more likely to occur in relation to incapacity benefits. I therefore urge the Minister to ensure that the regulations make provision for someone with sufficient knowledge of the condition to carry out the assessment. Alternatively, as some groups have suggested, much more weight could be given to a written medical assessment from people who are treating the applicant. At present, that does not seem to enter into the equation until the inevitable appeal.
	There is genuine concern about how people on benefits would fare if they tried to obtain work. The CAB report disclosed that more than half of such people thought that they would need benefits protection while they tried work. That is a serious problem for those on benefits who would not automatically be subject to the new rules—at least, not initially—but who could volunteer for inclusion. Many fear doing so because they are concerned that, if matters did not work out for them, they could end up worse off than if they had simply remained on benefit. Serious thought needs to be given to the question of whether we could introduce a guarantee period, in which anyone who obtained a job that did not work out within the period would not be worse off. I appreciate that that would not be easy, but it would help a great deal.
	The hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Angela Browning) made a very good point about supporting people once they are in work. In the Norwegian scheme, there is a buddy system to help people who find work to complete the initial period, and to make sure that they stay in work. That is essential to allow people with mental illnesses and learning disabilities to become used to the work environment. In those cases, we are not talking about rehabilitation; in many cases, we are talking about getting people into work for the first time. I agree that those on the new allowance should receive automatic access to other benefits, as is the case for people on jobseeker's allowance. I appreciate that some things, such as prescription charges, are a matter for the Scottish Executive, but others are a matter for the DWP, and I think that the issue needs to be considered again.
	Some organisations expressed concern about the use of private organisations to encourage people back to work. They feared that easy cases would be cherry-picked if payment is based on the number of people who returned to work, with difficult cases being omitted from the project. It is vital that that is not allowed to happen, as almost 90 per cent. of people with learning disabilities who are known to social services are unemployed. People with learning disabilities who are employed often work part-time and receive low pay. People with learning difficulties can work, and they want to do so. If the reform truly aims to help them into work, serious thought must be given to the provision of services so that we can ensure that providers encourage and support them into work. I was interested in what the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond) said on the subject, and in what the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton said about top-slicing. We must ensure that sufficient funds are provided for niche providers, whether or not they belong to a consortium, that provide the greater support required by that group. If we seriously wish to tackle the problem, the easy cases, if there are such things, must not be skimmed off and only those people helped back to work. Serious efforts must be made to ensure that people with lifelong disabilities are helped, too, which will entail serious discussion with employers on employment practices and, in some cases, their views on the employment of disabled people.
	The supported group—I appreciate that I am arguing for both sides of the coin—should not simply be labelled as unemployable. The National Autistic Society has called for the establishment of a clear system so that that group receives appropriate advice about work and training opportunities, as well as reassurance that their benefits will not be jeopardised. The reform must encompass everyone and, although I accept that Ministers face a difficult job in balancing all those concerns and desires, we need early sight of the regulations. That leads me on to one area where there may be serious disagreement about the Government's strategy. The Bill appears to be driven by a desire to save money but, if we genuinely wish to do so, we must achieve joined-up thinking between Government Departments and the devolved Administrations. We must tackle, too, the problem of finding jobs for people who are coming off benefit—a matter that was touched on by the hon. Member for Kingswood (Roger Berry).
	A large number of people ended up on incapacity benefit as a result of the mass unemployment of the late 1970s and 1980s, and many of them stayed on it for many years. We must not allow that to continue: when we roll out pathways to work it must be funded as fully as the pilot projects—a point that was well made by the hon. Member for Aberdeen, South. Many organisations have expressed concern that the pilot projects were successful because they were well funded, with everything available at their beck and call. If such support is not available when the project is rolled out, we will not achieve the same success nationally. The initiative must not be viewed as a way of saving money. We may need to spend money, at least in the short term, to save money in the long term. The initiative is worth while, and it has our support, but we need to see the regulations and exactly what has been proposed.

Natascha Engel: I am a big fan of the proposals. It is not going too far to say that if we get it right, the Bill more than any other piece of legislation could be what this Labour Government are remembered for. Together with our Sure Start programme, the Bill finally gives people on incapacity benefit a chance to work their way out of poverty.
	I echo some of the thoughts expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Roger Berry), especially the point that on average a person on incapacity benefit will receive less then £80 per week. There are an estimated 2.7 million people on incapacity benefit. That is 2.7 million people living on £80 per week. I do not think that any of us in the House can imagine what living on £80 a week must be like. People on incapacity benefit are poor. Not having a job is far more likely to mean that they are depressed and stressed. They do not have access to the social life that working can bring. Work is good for people's mental and physical well-being. Second to winning the national lottery, it is still the best way out of poverty.
	Beveridge understood that when he first thought of the welfare state. His welfare state was proactive. He intended it to rid the world of want, disease, squalor, ignorance and idleness. His welfare state was founded on universal access to free health care and education, decent housing, and a benefit system that would provide security for those who could not work, and most crucially, help to find a job for those who could. From education and health to unemployment benefit and welfare, the Beveridge plan had security at its heart, but work was its lifeblood.
	The welfare state did just that, until Thatcher and our changing economic landscape made welfare a passive dumping ground for the victims of industrial decline. Millions of people were written off on the benefit system with no expectation that they would work. Those are not just numbers; they are people. Most of us have seen the harm, the upset and the chaos that worklessness causes. It robs people of their dignity, self-confidence and self-worth. It is no surprise that suicide rates are 35 times higher among the long-term unemployed. To leave people on incapacity benefit and not to help them find work is not an option. No one is arguing that the modern welfare state adequately reflects modern labour markets and employment patterns. We need welfare reform, but we need to get it right.
	The Bill recognises that the world of work has changed since the days of Beveridge, or even Thatcher. It is no longer the case that incapacity benefit claimants are all men from the industrial heartlands with bad backs. As many hon. Members have mentioned, mental health problems caused by stress at work may be as big a problem in this century as industrial injuries were in the last century. That is why it is vital that we focus on identifying mental health problems that impact on people's ability to work and finding better ways to help people overcome them.
	In order to do that, we need to find better ways of engaging with employers—another issue that has been highlighted by many hon. Members. We should ensure that people do not feel forced out of work in the first place, but more importantly, we need to educate employers about mental health issues. There is still too much stigma attached both to mental health problems and to physical disability.
	Most employers tend to be in small and medium-sized firms. We no longer have great monolithic state institutions. Instead, we live in the age of the flexible labour market, which is fine for those who are qualified and skilled enough to be in control of it, but it is not fine for the unskilled and semi-skilled whose lives are determined by it. Flexibility means that no one size fits all, and flexibility does not suit everyone. Flexibility means that we have to tailor our welfare state to meet the work and welfare needs of individuals.
	That is why the pathways to work pilots have been the single most successful intervention for getting people off benefits, out of poverty and into sustainable, meaningful work. My constituency is North-East Derbyshire, which falls into the Derbyshire pathways to work pilot area, which was the first pathways area in England.
	A claimant who takes part in the pathways pilots gets a personal adviser who will take them through the journey from incapacity benefit to sustainable work.
	One of the elements that has worked best in pathways to work has been the condition management programmes. People who have been away from work for long periods often have additional needs, such as dealing with the stress caused by poverty and not working, or the pain that they are experiencing from their illness or disability.
	Specialists are brought in to work with claimants until they can manage their condition. Jobcentre Plus works closely with local colleges to ensure that the necessary training is given to qualify people for suitable jobs.
	As a result, 25,000 people nationally have entered work through the pathways pilots, which, as we heard, have been running for just over two years. People who leave IB for work in pathways areas earn on average £72 a week more than elsewhere. That is a significant statistic because it is a direct result of pathways making sure that people get the right job, not just any job. That is an important part of the welfare reforms.
	There is a national downward trend of 1 or 2 per cent. in people claiming incapacity benefit. In my area that figure is well over 6 per cent. The national roll-out of pathways is key to the reforms, but the most needed reform is changing the medical examination to a personal capability assessment. At present, a person claiming incapacity benefit has to go to a medical examination centre about once a year. The doctors who work at these centres are testing for incapacity. They ask questions and tick boxes. Enough so-called right answers mean that the person can stay on incapacity benefit.
	I have lost count of the number of people who have told me that doctors at the medical examination centres do not look at them. They do not even look them in the eye. Hopefully, that will change when doctors and personal advisers look at what a person is capable of doing, and not just for the few moments that they spend being assessed. Too many people with fluctuating conditions and mental health problems fail the test because at the time of their assessment they are feeling okay. The personal capability assessment must look at a person's long-term history and the person must be looked at physically. Getting rid of the computer screens at medical examination centres would be a very good start to doing that.
	It can be the most satisfying and rewarding thing in the world to see someone's life change because they have been helped back to work. I went with the Work and Pensions Committee to visit Derby so that we could see for ourselves how the pathways to work pilot was running. It was incredible. People who had been helped back to work were often very tearful and spoke of their lives having been given back to them. I have never seen such a dramatic difference being made to people's lives.
	But there can also be deep frustration. We can work in partnership, we can work laterally, we can identify different pots of resources, but what happens when someone agrees to a back-to-work plan, they are taking part in pain and condition management, they sail through skills training and education, they are ready and eager to go to work, they are totally job ready, and then there is no job for them to go to? That is where the cities strategy comes in, which is the best bit of the Bill. Our cities have the highest concentration of incapacity benefit claimants, and it is right that we target the greater number in the cities. The cities strategy pools resources and initiatives within a city and brings together local partners to work within and as a community to improve economic regeneration through skills, employment and health.
	This is fantastic stuff, but what happens in rural areas such as North-East Derbyshire? We have no cities, but we do have high concentrations of incapacity benefit claimants. It is like lots of ex-mining communities where many people live in isolated, rural villages with poor transport links and no cars, and those are the people on incapacity benefit. Transport infrastructure in cities is much better than it is for people in the countryside, and someone who lives in a city will have a wider range of jobs available in a smaller area. Fundamentally, the cities strategy is about going out to the areas where we know the largest number of incapacity benefit claimants live rather than calling them in to jobcentres. There is no reason why we cannot transfer that model to a rural setting.
	We will be setting up a rural pilot in North-East Derbyshire, bringing together all the key stakeholders from welfare rights organisations, Jobcentre Plus, some private and voluntary training providers and job brokers, Chesterfield college and large employers. We will work together to ensure that our current labour markets and future jobs and skills needs are properly mapped. It is the only way to ensure that local people at least have a chance of getting local jobs.
	One final thought. The Bill can be as radical and imaginative as the very creation of the welfare state itself, but the reforms need to be carefully thought out. They must meet the needs of a wide-range of different people with minor or severe conditions, people who are recently out of a job and others who have never been able to work. If we get this wrong, we let down the most vulnerable people in our society. But if we get it right, we could lift millions of people out of poverty and give them back their lives.

Sammy Wilson: This legislation, at least as it stands, does not apply to Northern Ireland. As one who the chattering classes have described as coming from the celtic fringe, I hope that I do not incur the wrath of others on the Opposition Benches for taking part in this debate. I wanted to join in the general outbreak of consensus and good will that there has been on this Bill towards the end of this Session for two reasons in particular—first because it is an important part of the economic policy that will keep the United Kingdom working well, and secondly because it is an important micro-economic policy that deals with a vulnerable group of people, whom we simply cannot dismiss and say that they have no part in the economic life of our country.
	I hope and believe that the Bill will eventually apply to Northern Ireland, because much of what has been said about other parts of the United Kingdom here tonight applies even more so to Northern Ireland. It is well known that members of my party do not trot into the Lobby with the Government too often, but I congratulate them at least on the macro-economic policy in Northern Ireland, where we are now experiencing the lowest level of unemployment that I can remember in my lifetime. However, our economy still contains significant pockets of people who have faced unemployment for a long time. In parts of Northern Ireland, up to 40 per cent. of the working population is on incapacity benefit, and I do not believe that all those people cannot contribute in some way to the economic life of that part of the United Kingdom. If the Bill were to channel such people back into work, it would do them a favour, and it would do our economy good.
	As the hon. Member for North-East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel) has said, the system will examine people's personal capabilities. I have dealt with too many constituency cases in which GPs have treated people week after week, month after month and year after year simply by writing them a line, because they are disabled.
	On the assessment for incapacity benefit, 70 per cent. of those whose cases are reviewed in Northern Ireland have the outcome changed on appeal, which indicates that the initial assessment is not done that well. People's personal capabilities are important, and perhaps the new system will focus on the contribution that people can make.
	I have a couple of concerns that I would like the Minister to address. First, Age Concern has pointed out that even under the existing pathways programme, the people who do not get moved into work easily are over 50, but I cannot see anything in the Bill indicating that there will be a greater success rate for over-50s.
	Secondly, if we are to meet the Government's target in Northern Ireland, more than 30,000 people who are currently regarded as disabled in some way must be put into jobs, which will require a massive change, and the change will probably need to be greater in the public sector than the private sector. Given the importance of the public sector in Northern Ireland, it worries me that we are holding out the promise of a new route to work for people, who may find themselves in endless work-related programmes, but may never get into work.
	Some time ago, I was involved in a voluntary sector project to get hard-to-place youths into work. The success rate was one thing that gave those who joined the scheme a bit of drive—85 per cent. of those who went through the scheme got into full-time employment, which injected discipline into youngsters who might otherwise have found it difficult to stay on the programme. Unless such success rates are achieved, people will quickly become fed up and think that the scheme is just another failed initiative.
	Giving employers sanctions has generated some concern, but I do not share that worry. In my experience of that youth project, the employer having sanctions can sometimes be important, because the people who are directly involved can best judge whether a sanction is appropriate and which sanction is appropriate. I am not therefore worried about the fact that employers will have the ability to impose sanctions.
	Turning quickly to housing benefit, I have two concerns. First, I am concerned about the payment going directly to the tenant, who will then pass it on to the landlord. Some Members have argued that that is good because it teaches people who receive the benefit responsibility, but many, sad to say, are unable to bear that responsibility because when they get the money they will immediately spend it on drink, drugs or whatever, or if they do not, their husband, wife or partner will. If the money goes into a bank account, sometimes the bank will take it. There is already an element of responsibility involved anyway. Most people do not get 100 per cent. of housing costs met through housing benefit, so they have to budget somewhat for housing. We need to consider whether direct payment is appropriate in all circumstances. The Minister said earlier on that there would be opportunities for some people to have money paid directly to the landlord, but that merely puts in place yet another expensive bureaucracy for assessing who should have direct payment and who should not. Either we have it or we do not.
	Secondly, I am concerned about the issue of housing benefit being withdrawn in the case of antisocial behaviour. We need to impose as many sanctions as possible on those who engage in antisocial behaviour and make people's life a misery on estates. However, I wonder how much of this part of the Bill is down to getting a headline in the papers, some of which have already zoomed in on it and said that people will lose housing benefit if they do not behave. However, the Minister has made it clear that he is already imposing a restriction. When I asked him about it earlier, he said that there is no chance of families with children being turfed out on to the street. If so, we are already ruling out a whole range of people who may cause misery for their neighbours. We have to ask ourselves when and how this measure will be applied if it is to be effective.
	I trust that the Bill will be introduced in parallel in Northern Ireland. That is necessary given the circumstances of those in that part of the United Kingdom who find themselves out of work and on incapacity benefit without some of the support that is required. Antisocial behaviour is a big issue on many estates, so any sanctions that can be imposed, albeit that they have been weakened by what the Minister has said, will be an important element of the armoury in fighting against that blight on society.
	I appreciate the opportunity to take part in this Second Reading debate and trust that some of the points that have been raised will be teased out more fully so that the Bill returns in an even better form.

Andrew Love: I, too, warmly welcome the Bill for all the reasons that other Members have mentioned. I am particularly concerned with part 2, which deals with housing benefit.
	We all know about the problems with the housing benefit system. It is incredibly complex: anyone who has seen the local authority manual for housing benefit will know just how complex. It is bureaucratic, as anyone who has had to endure it when trying to claim housing benefit will know, and that leads to significant delays in payment. Primarily, there are enormous shortfalls in the payment of housing benefit compared with the rents that people have to pay.
	For all those reasons, it has been a priority for the Government to reform the system. They introduced the local housing allowance pathfinders in 2003 and we are now beginning to get the results of those pilots. The pathfinders' objectives were to: promote fairness, increase choice for the tenant, have greater transparency—tenants would know in advance the amount of local housing allowance that they were to receive—and increase personal responsibility. I shall revert to the latter shortly. The primary objective was bringing an end to the interminable waits for claims because of the bureaucratic nature of the system.
	Pathfinders have achieved most of the objectives and were especially successful in reducing the shortfalls between benefit and rent—from £24 to £17 on average. That is to be warmly welcomed. However, we need to consider several matters in our scrutiny of the Bill.
	All hon. Members who commented on housing benefit reforms mentioned direct payments to private tenants. I accept the objective of trying to increase personal responsibility. It is important if we are to assist people into employment, and the results of the pathfinders are encouraging. However, there are dark clouds on the horizon for the national roll-out of the scheme. Many people mentioned landlords' resistance and expressed a view that that will increase the risk of non-payment and falling into arrears. I have some concerns that that will reduce the supply of accommodation for housing benefit tenants.
	However, my main worry is about vulnerable tenants. They include the elderly, people who are leaving supported housing or care and the statutory homeless. There is a whole group of vulnerable tenants. Although I accept that provision has been made for local authorities to pay the benefit directly to the landlord, the system does not contain adequate safeguards and we need to consider whether trained and qualified staff are required to make an assessment to ensure that those who are most exposed under a system of personal responsibility do not fall into significant arrears.
	One of the reasons for pathfinders' success is the increased provision of financial advice to tenants in the pilot areas. Genuine difficulties undoubtedly arise when people have to set up bank accounts. Unfortunately, the Post Office card account is not available because, for some reason, the Post Office and local authorities do not have any agreements and people therefore have to set up bank accounts. There are major problems, with which people need help. For example, the European money-laundering regulations mean that people have to produce original documentation. That has proved a genuine difficulty in other circumstances. I was pleased that the Minister gave the reassurance today that the enhanced money advice facilities will be available when the scheme is rolled out nationwide.
	I want to consider the local housing allowance. Under the Bill, the rent service will set the local housing allowance and decide the broad rental market areas that that amount of local housing allowance will cover. Again, the pathfinder experience has been good. I welcome that and congratulate the Government because there has been a substantial reduction—from 58 per cent. to 39 per cent.—in the shortfalls that people experienced in those broad rental market areas. However, there have been significant variations, and several hon. Members voiced genuine concerns about that. For example, in Leeds, the scheme almost halved the number of people with a gap between their rent and housing benefit, but Conwy experienced only a small reduction. We need to look more closely at that experience, to determine how we can learn from it. There are also issues relating to transparency and to the boundaries of the broad rental market areas. I take the point made earlier about the significant variation in rental levels across Greater London, and we need to ensure that we get those boundaries right if we are going to make a success of the local housing allowance.
	The shared room rate restriction will apply to childless claimants under 25 years of age. I will not go into that matter in detail, but I have raised an Adjournment debate on the subject. I welcome the extension of the shared room rate introduced by the Government, and the subsequent reduction in shortfalls experienced by young people in the pathfinder areas. However, there is still a major difference between young people, who experience an average shortfall of £35, and others, whose average shortfall was just over £16. We need to look into this matter, and I hope that Ministers will be sympathetic to a debate in Committee on the best way forward for the shared room rate.
	I should like to make a brief plea in relation to interim payments, which have presented a particular problem in the housing benefit system. It does not look as though any changes will be made to the present arrangements, and I assume that that is because it has been accepted that the delays inherent in the existing system will not arise in the new system. However, we ought not to take that on trust. We need to strengthen the interim payments structure to ensure that people will be protected if their housing benefit is not paid, rather than finding themselves in arrears and threatened with eviction.
	Finally, I want to say a brief word on the housing benefit sanction to tackle antisocial behaviour. I am sympathetic in principle to what the Government are trying to achieve. We have to crack down on antisocial behaviour and I am interested in the rehabilitation support that has been suggested. However, we must ventilate some of these arguments in Committee to ensure that that support is real. We must also consider the implications for families and, especially, young children who are evicted and who have action taken against them. I am certainly sympathetic to the idea of establishing pilots to enable us to look carefully at this issue, because that is what is needed, and I hope that we will be able to improve the system to ensure that antisocial behaviour is dealt with.
	I strongly welcome the Bill overall, and I particularly welcome the provisions for setting up the local housing allowance. The Bill will make a significant difference to people at the margins of our society, and I hope that it will not only encourage them to get back into work but ensure that they are looked after with a proper safety net while they are in the transition period.

Greg Clark: The hon. Member for North-East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel) —and indeed the Secretary of State—referred to William Beveridge. I should like to refer to that other great titan of the 20th century, Sir Winston Churchill, who summed up the vision for our party's involvement in social policy with two images: the ladder and the net. That has served us well during the 20th century, but it is an outdated vision for the 21st. People get tangled up in nets, and our purpose in this age must be to propel people upwards, not to leave them languishing in a net, however humane the intention behind its provision.
	Nothing could better illustrate that problem than incapacity benefit. We know that once someone has been on IB for a year, they are likely to spend an average of eight years on it. The reasons for that are complex. People have special needs that can be difficult to deal with. When setting targets for reforming welfare provision to alleviate poverty, it is appropriate to tackle the difficult cases as well as the easier ones, and I urge those on my Front Bench as well as the Government to take that on board.
	I applaud the Government's achievements in reducing child poverty, but when we look at the construction of that target and at how progress towards it has been made, we realise that it has consisted largely of increasing the income of people just below the 60 per cent. poverty line to just above it. However, the number of people on less than 40 per cent. of median earnings—those in more severe poverty—has increased. Some 800,000 more people are now in severe poverty than 10 years ago. Many of those people are disabled. In a very good lecture to the Fabian Society, the Secretary of State pointed out that 25 per cent. of all children in poverty have at least one disabled parent. It is therefore extremely important that we direct our attention to that group. I hope that the Government's headline targets will not distract them from that purpose. Our welcome for the Bill reflects the fact that it goes some way to show that the issue is not being entirely forgotten.
	What can be done about it? The hon. Member for Tooting (Mr. Khan) and I serve on the Public Accounts Committee and we recently had the pleasure of scrutinising a report from the National Audit Office that considered the Department's record on support for disabled people. It contained some shocking revelations. For example, as the Minister knows, 2.6 million people are on incapacity benefit, but only 125,000 of them are engaged in programmes to get them back into work. That is a drop in the ocean. If we are serious about giving people with disabilities the chances that they require and about extending to them the social justice that we extend to other parts of society, it is vital that we increase the number and quality of places available.
	The NAO also found that, since April 2001, one third of all workstep suppliers have not progressed a single person into unsupported employment. As well as providing some of the sticks and carrots in the Bill, we need to consider the quality and availability of that provision. In so doing, I urge the Minister to make far greater use of the private and voluntary sectors, which have a record of innovation that commends itself. I have had some experience of the work of Tomorrow's People in my constituency and around the country. It has a fantastic record in dealing with the difficult problems that people face and helping to alleviate and, in some cases, cure them, so that people can go back into unsupported employment and have a decent chance of staying in it.
	I also commend to the Minister's attention the experience of Kent, where the supporting independence programme was a trailblazer for what is possible when local councils are trusted to think imaginatively about how to take welfare spending and turn it into positive opportunities for people. Over the past three years, Kent has seen a 4 per cent. reduction in welfare spending, responding to the challenge set by Ministers through public service agreement targets to take on responsibility, for example, for getting people from welfare back into work. That has been a great success. It has not only helped the chances of people with disabilities but been a positive economic factor.
	I also welcome the city strategy programme that Ministers are advancing. I hope that Kent will be selected to be part of that. Sometimes people get the wrong idea about Kent and think that the garden of England is universally affluent and without social problems, but we have great problems of social deprivation.

Justine Greening: I am interested that my hon. Friend mentioned the city strategy. Does he agree that it is ironic that London features in the last wave of the pathways to work roll-out, and my area will only be rolled out in April 2008, nearly two years from today?

Greg Clark: I am grateful for my hon. Friend's intervention, which underlines that we perhaps need to be more ambitious in rolling out such programmes. There is no point having financial penalties and interviews if programmes are not available for people who are keen, to the point of being desperate, to get into work. I hope that the pressure from this debate might encourage Ministers to roll out such programmes more quickly and aggressively across the country.
	I am aware that others wish to speak, so I will cut my remarks short. Let me end by saying that, as I believe was pointed out by a Labour Member, this is an historic opportunity for the Government to add to their achievements in welfare reform—which, for the most part, have been relatively disappointing from our point of view—and to take a major step forward. So far, the Government's record in returning people with disabilities to work has not been one of their highlights, but I hope that as a result of the Bill, especially if it is taken a little further in the direction that I have suggested, many hundreds of thousands of people with disabilities will benefit.

John Robertson: As a fellow Celt, the hon. Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) will appreciate that I do not give a jot about what members of his party think of my contribution. Someone from Glasgow, a city that may contain the largest number of people on benefit, will consider it important to look at exactly what the Government are trying to do. Their attempt to place 80 per cent. of the population in employment suggests a taxing target, to say the least, but an honourable one, which I hope all Members will support. We have already observed a degree of consensus tonight.
	We ought to remember that, in the 1980s, the Tories took people off the unemployment list and put them on benefits. At one stage, fewer than 60 per cent. of Glasgow's people were employed; the rest were either unemployed or, in most cases, claiming benefits. In cities like Glasgow, it has been hard work to return people to employment. It is difficult to believe that our city contains third generations who are incapacitated. I do not understand how it is possible to be on incapacity benefit without having had a job in the first place, but it happens. In cities such as ours, there is a great deal of work ahead of us.
	Reforming incapacity benefit and income support is very important to those who, we hope, will eventually be given work. Thanks to Pathways to Work, people in Glasgow have returned to employment, and not just cheap employment: a number have obtained first-ever jobs paying over £15,000 a year, so there is hope. Nevertheless, the Trades Union Congress, among others, has concerns about, in particular, employment and support allowance. As far as I know, there has as yet been no mention of ESA rates, which makes it difficult to calculate the number of people who will be better off or, in some cases, worse off. I shall reserve judgment until we see the figures.
	The Bill states that new claimants will receive an ability assessment within 13 weeks of their claims, but Citizens Advice rightly fears that that is not achievable. It is unacceptable that families on low incomes having to adapt to new or worsening health conditions should have to survive on jobseeker's allowance for more than 13 weeks through no fault of their own. Can the Minister comment on the idea of backdating entitlement if the target is not met? Backdating does not mean that such people should not be employed, but it might help them by confirming that although their health is bad, they want employment. It would help them to feel part of the system.
	As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said earlier, pathways to work has been a highly successful pilot scheme. I see the positive results in my constituency. The scheme was launched on 31 October, and was designed to help people claiming incapacity benefit to return to work. About 9,000 pathways to work interviews have been conducted, and, as has been said, the average national rate of voluntary participation is 8 per cent. I am proud to say that in Glasgow the figure has reached 20 per cent.
	Before the introduction of pathways to work, 1,760 claimants were in receipt of incapacity benefit or income support. Those people have now moved back into work and about 74 per cent. of them—1,300 people—are in receipt of return to work credit: £40 a week for 42 weeks, before moving into full-time incapacity benefits. My concern over pathways to work is about the lack of training of advisers, so will the Minister assure me, my colleagues and people who work in the Department that advisers will be properly trained? I have not found any reference to that in the Bill, but it should be included. Advisers should also be fully trained in mental health issues. I shall not go into further detail on that, as many hon. Members who have much more experience than me have already dealt with it.
	The Minister should also be aware of the half-truths spread by the media. Some might say that there is nothing new there, but the media seem to imply that the Government are forcing people into work. Will the Minister assure my constituents that that is not the case and will he dispel the propaganda of the populist press?
	The role of the new deal in getting people into work is important. The hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond), who is unfortunately not in his place, described the new deal as an expensive flop, yet 310 young people, 250 under-25s and 400 lone parents in his constituency have benefited from it.
	We have done a similarly good job with tax credits. The shadow Chancellor, the hon. Member for Tatton (Mr. Osborne) said:
	"I do not acknowledge that the present tax credit system has helped in the reduction of child poverty"—[ Official Report, 12 July 2005; Vol. 436, c. 704.]
	Will the Secretary of State confirm that the tax credit system has helped bring 700,000 children out of poverty? I wonder whether the hon. Member for Tatton is going to remove the credits from the 5,500 families in his constituency who benefit from the system?
	Pension credit is very important to my constituency, which has many elderly people. Pension credit claims are worth about £47 to pensioners in my constituency. Yet the right hon. Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) claimed:
	"Pensioners I meet don't want the extra fuel allowance, the free television licence, and all of the other condescending handouts from Gordon Brown: they want back more of the money that they paid in tax all their lives, in the form of a higher basic state pension."
	So much for a caring, cuddly, hugging leader. In his constituency, 3,730 pensioners receive pension credit, there are 3,300 in the shadow Chancellor's constituency and 3,210 in the constituency of the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge. That amounts to 7,240 pensioners—the poorest pensioners—who will not be getting a hug from the Tory party, but a slap in the face. In supporting the Bill, will we see yet another flip-flop from the Tories? To vote for or not to vote for——that is the question.
	Before finishing, I want to mention my ten-minute Bill on rehabilitation leave. I hope that the Minister will carefully consider the points that I made in that Bill and seek to incorporate some of them into the excellent Bill before us now. My Bill provides a statutory right for newly disabled employees to have their employment capacity and support needs properly assessed and addressed—as far as I am concerned, that fits into the present Bill—and, where necessary, to have a period of leave to adapt or undergo rehabilitation and retraining before returning to work, which is another theme that runs through the Bill.
	Recent figures from the CBI show that 84 per cent. of businesses now offer rehabilitation schemes to help people back into work, so that must be cost-effective for them, but businesses say that they need more support from employees' GPs to allow them to offer more rehabilitation to employees before returning to work.
	In 1972, the Secretary of State for Employment in Edward Heath's Conservative Government, Robert Carr, believed that employers were too wise and astute to let apprenticeships fail. That resulted in the Conservative Government getting rid of the training incentives needed to develop apprenticeships, and the skills shortages that we have today are the result. I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to consider the people who need training—young people—and that elderly people could be used to help to train them.
	What the Government propose in the Bill is a fundamental change, like those that we have proposed already in relation to tax credits and the new deal. It has already been shown to be good for Glasgow; it will be even better in the months and years ahead, and I hope that that will be the same in the whole country.

Paul Rowen: Like many other hon. Members, I welcome the opportunity to debate some of the issues raised in the Bill. As the hon. Member for Aberdeen, South (Miss Begg) said, we have come a long way since the initial discussions, and what we have now is very much a framework for getting people to work. I hope that, as the Bill proceeds through the House, Ministers will give us an opportunity to see more of the substance and form.
	Certainly, in Greater Manchester, the 10 district councils are already working to ensure that, when the system starts in our area, we can make it a success. However, there are concerns about whether it will be joined up across the piece. For example, I am concerned that the Learning and Skills Council is cutting funding for some low-level courses that are helping people with learning difficulties, when getting on to those courses may well be a prerequisite to getting back to work. Similarly, business support is being externalised and moved away. If we are to make ESA work, we must ensure that there is the necessary joined-up thinking.
	In view of the lack of time, I want to address my main remarks to housing benefit. I welcome some of the proposed changes to simplify the system and make it much clearer. However, like other Members, I have concerns about the way that local housing allowance will work. I hope that its primary purpose is to ensure that the supply of affordable private rented housing will increase. The hon. Member for Hammersmith and Fulham (Mr. Hands) spoke about the problems in London. I believe that those problems exist elsewhere in areas without a plentiful supply of private rented housing. It is therefore important that the underlying rationale used by rent officers in setting the level of rent for housing allowance to be paid is made available, so that people can understand it.
	I hope that Ministers will understand that many people do not have a choice about where they live, because of family ties and so on, and that they must live near where their children go to school. Therefore, it is important that the local housing allowance reflects what they can pay. There is a huge and growing gap. Hon. Members have mentioned some of the pathfinders and the variance between what happened in Leeds and Conwy will not help those people. That issue needs to be resolved.
	Similarly, I hope that, when the system is rolled out, the support given to people to help them to manage their own affairs is the same as that available in the pathfinders—to do otherwise would be extremely cruel. People have visited my surgery to tell me about the problems that they have experienced during mental breakdowns and how they have got themselves into horrendous debt and how Government agencies and benefit providers do not accept and understand their problems. The hon. Member for Angus (Mr. Weir) mentioned a very similar case. Those problems must be taken care of when the regulations are introduced.
	I also want to mention dealing with antisocial behaviour. I bow to no one in respect of saying that that is important and has to be dealt with, but I do not believe that the Government are going about it in the right way, because let us be clear: we are talking about giving another tenancy to people who have already been evicted. I would prefer the Government to propose that they be given a probationary tenancy that is tied to their attendance at certain rehabilitation courses, because that would be much more effective than the threat to remove their housing benefit. As has been made clear, such people will probably end up with considerable housing arrears and will not be too bothered by such threats. We need to give them a real threat: "You get the house if you behave yourself; if you don't, you're out." Such a policy is much firmer, and it is more likely to succeed.
	The hon. Member for Barnsley, West and Penistone (Mr. Clapham) raised the issue of payments in respect of mesothelioma, and I hope that the Minister will answer some of the questions that he asked. It is an important issue that several Members are concerned about and we want it to be dealt with in the Bill, as it has been in another piece of legislation that has already passed through the House. This is an important Bill, and I am grateful to have had this chance to contribute to our proceedings on it.

David Ruffley: This has been a constructive debate marked by good intentions from all parts of the House. Members of my party believe that those who can work should have the barriers in their way removed. Getting out of dependency and leading a more fulfilling life is what many of the 2.7 million people who are on incapacity benefits desperately wish to do. That is why we believe in active labour market policies. However, we also believe that security must be guaranteed for those whose level of disability is so great that they cannot work; that is one of the hallmarks of the civilised society in which we all wish to live.
	We have also agreed in our debate about regulations. In the Bill's 76 pages, there are more than 240 references to regulations. That is part of a trend over the past nine years: some Ministers have sought to make major policy changes via statutory instruments, which are not amendable. Therefore, I hope that the Minister will agree tonight with his hon. Friends the hon. Members for Kingswood (Roger Berry) and for Burton (Mrs. Dean) that the draft regulations should be published well before the Committee stage. Will the Minister tell us tonight what the draft regulations will be and when we can expect to see them, in the interests of having a grown-up and mature debate?
	The Bill is in the form that it is in, and is being somewhat rushed through this House, because of earlier delays. Before the last election, we were promised a Green Paper sometime in the summer of 2005, but it did not see the light of day until January 2006. That probably had something to do with the No. 10 policy unit sticking its oar in and pushing for welfare changes that were so draconian that not even the then Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett), approved of them. An e-mail of last October from the Prime Minister to the then Secretary of State infamously demanded more means-testing for all incapacity benefit recipients, the time-limiting of incapacity benefit, naming and shaming GPs who allegedly signed off too many sick notes, and commuting a portion of the incapacity benefit amount into a non-cashable voucher with which claimants would have to buy rehabilitative care. Thankfully, none of that saw the light of day, but what we do have today is a Bill whose level of generality raises many questions, many of which have been posed in our debate.
	First, we must be clear about the Government's target of removing 1 million people from incapacity benefit by 2016. On March 6, the Secretary of State said:
	"we are starting from 2.7-2.72 million. By 2015/2016 I would like to see that figure down to 1.72 million, so it is a net figure. We are not trying to do any clever statistical sleight of hand on this."
	But in a parliamentary written answer to me on 16 June, the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Stirling (Mrs. McGuire) published figures—she should listen because she probably does not remember what she put in  Hansard—showing that if there were no changes at all, in 10 years' time there would be only 2.36 million incapacity claimants anyway.  [Interruption.] The Secretary of State says, "Is this a serious debate?" It certainly is, because the point that we are making—my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond) made it earlier—is that the Government will have to assist only 640,000 people, not the 1 million whom the Secretary of State said he would help.  [Interruption.] That is a serious point, and if the Secretary of State does not think so, it is him who should grow up.
	Secondly, this Bill gives insufficient help to existing claimants, half of whom have been trapped on IB for more than five years. They risk being left out in the cold.

Justine Greening: rose—

David Ruffley: A June Department for Work and Pensions consultation report confirms that existing claimants will be migrated to the new allowance "in time", and "as resources allow". That seems unfair to many outside bodies, so will the Secretary of State publish a date by which existing claimants will be able to access support under his new regime? Is he prepared to do that?

Justine Greening: rose—

David Ruffley: This problem has particular relevance —[Interruption.] The Secretary of State may not think that the plight of existing claimants is a problem, but many people do.

Justine Greening: rose—

David Ruffley: I am very happy to give way to my hon. Friend.

Justine Greening: I am delighted that my hon. Friend has given way; my persistence has paid off. Does he agree that one other problem with the 1 million target is that it was set when the Green Paper was issued, and that between then and now, the Government have said that they will assist existing claimants on to the employment and support allowance in order to help them back into work? So in theory, the 1 million figure should surely be adjusted to reflect the new cohort of people on IB who will get help who were not going to get it before.

David Ruffley: My hon. Friend makes an excellent point, and I hope that the Minister will answer the question about the 1 million target: are we talking about 1 million people, or some 650,000?

Hugh Bayley: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

David Ruffley: I need to make progress because time is short; I might give way in a minute.
	The Bill is meant to deliver the Green Paper's further aim of increasing the number of older workers by 1 million. Age Concern said:
	"We recommend the Department sets interim targets so it has an incentive to support people who are too old to count towards targets that are a decade or more away. We recommend the Government states its employment aspirations for older people for the short and medium term by setting a clear, stretching target for the end of the next CSR period."
	Will the Secretary of State agree to that request?
	Thirdly, many welfare stakeholders openly wonder whether the funding for the Bill is adequate. The chief executive of the Disability Alliance said that the roll-out could end up as "pathways lite". The Select Committee said:
	"There are widespread concerns that"
	the funding
	"may not be sufficient without services being watered down."
	The funding issue gets murkier when we turn to the Bill's regulatory impact assessment. There is no statement on the proposed benefit rates for the new allowance. In addition, it proposes that certain elements of the new regime be introduced only as resources allow. It states:
	"The overall cost of moving on to the new ESA will be dependent on where the benefit rate is set. In addition, it is likely there will be implementation and IT costs incurred during the transition; again these costs will vary depending on the agreed solution."
	We know that according to the Chancellor, the likely cut in the DWP baseline next year will be in the region of 5 per cent.; let us hope that he is not the road block to reform in delivering on this Bill. To clear up worries outside this place about the adequacy of funding, will the Minister undertake today to publish biannually statistics on the incapacity claimant case load and on progress toward the target reductions, and to publish estimates of the resources that will be required to achieve that target?
	Fourthly, the evidence shows that payment by results can get more people back to work more quickly—an example being the providers of employment zones. As participants progress through the programme, providers receive payments throughout that activity, and additional payments are received for achieving sustainable employment. A November 2003 DWP research report found that 28 per cent. of the employment zone participants surveyed had a job of 16 hours or more per week, compared with 17 per cent. of new deal 25-plus participants.
	There are other examples, too. Yet the Bill does not introduce a serious payment by results regime, the objective of which would be to get more people off IB more quickly. That is why my hon. Friend the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge today proposed a radically better deal for claimants. Our no win, no fee proposal would offer providers the opportunity to get existing claimants into sustained employment, but we would pay the provider only when actual benefit savings had tangibly been realised. Significantly, that model would help to get round the comprehensive spending review constraints that the Treasury is currently imposing on the Secretary of State.
	We would, of course, provide safeguards so that more modestly sized providers in the private and voluntary sector, which might be concerned about cash flow, would not be excluded from winning contracts. In particular, we understand the point made by Mencap, which said:
	"Niche providers with specialist expertise in learning disability are losing contracts with Jobcentre Plus due to the current policy of awarding contracts to large, generic providers."
	That is why we would like a fuller debate about the way in which bids in the pathways scheme roll out, and how they can be structured to ensure that small providers such as Mencap and Tomorrow's People, which my hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark) referred to in his excellent speech, continue to thrive. My hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Angela Browning) made similar points.
	Finally on the issue of the private and voluntary sector, we know that the roll-out from October 2007 until April 2008 will extend the pathways scheme to the remaining 60 per cent. of new customers. The departmental press release said that that would happen
	"mainly via private and voluntary sector partners."
	Will the Minister tell us what so many providers are asking? What does "mainly" mean? Does it mean that 100 per cent. of the provision will be by the private and voluntary sector, or 90 per cent., or 80 per cent? What is the figure?
	Fifthly, the sensitive operation of the new limited capability for work test in clause 8, the limited capability for work-related activity in clause 9, and the work-focused health-related assessment in clause 10, is vital to the establishment of an efficient new allowance. Under the current system, too many cases go to appeal. Concerns are already emerging about the Bill's proposal that at least two and possibly three of those new tests will be administered not only at the same time, but by the same assessor. Stakeholders have pointed out that that could lead to inaccurate decisions because a claimant will first have to demonstrate that they are sick and then, a few minutes later, demonstrate what they are capable of doing. Any rational claimant will undoubtedly grasp that the more capability he or she demonstrates, the more that could undermine a judgment about his or her disability.
	The potential for that to go wrong is great, and I was rather disappointed that the Minister talked about dummy runs, not a proper pilot. That is why the Disability Benefits Consortium has said:
	"We believe that getting the interaction between these two assessments right is vital and the dummy runs the Government have proposed are inadequate for testing out such a substantial change to the entitlement system."
	Will the Minister think again on that?
	I want to ask about housing benefit in part 2 of the Bill. My hon. Friends the Members for Poole (Mr. Syms) and for Hammersmith and Fulham (Mr. Hands) had much of interest to say on that. In most of the pathfinder areas, the flat rate housing allowance has reduced the shortfall experienced by claimants between the benefit that they receive and the rent that they owe. We welcome that. However, clause 27 revises the local housing allowance model. It proposes changes to the methodology used to calculate the flat local housing allowance rates, to the room size criteria and to the cap on the amount that a claimant can retain. Will the Minister agree with Shelter, and with us, that before the Committee stage, the Department for Work and Pensions should publish its detailed modelling of the anticipated impact of those adjustments in the Bill?
	I also want to ask about the controversial provisions in clause 28 for the loss of housing benefit following eviction for antisocial behaviour. Will the Minister reflect on what Barnado's has said:
	"Our particular concern is about the effect on children...it is not a child's fault that their families are in difficulties...but the withdrawal of financial benefits from the family is likely to drive more children into deeper poverty and...work against the Government reaching its target for reducing poverty. Ultimately, of course, subsequent eviction from the home might lead to an increase in the number of children entering the care system"?
	The Bill will not succeed in helping people simply because it has broadly desirable aims. The nuts and bolts of reform must be right; the devil is in the detail. Conservative Members will thus challenge Government assumptions when we must. We will put forward modern Conservative alternatives when we can, such as proposing a system of payment by results, which would get more people off benefit more quickly. It is in the spirit of constructive criticism—and in that spirit alone—that we will give the Bill a Second Reading tonight.

Jim Murphy: I welcomed the tone and content of the speeches that we heard from hon. Members on both sides of the House. The debate was quite rightly passionate at times. I do not have enough time to respond to all the specific points raised by my hon. Friends and Opposition Members. We heard 20 speeches, including those made by my hon. Friends the Members for City of York (Hugh Bayley), for Regent's Park and Kensington, North (Ms Buck), for Kingswood (Roger Berry), for Burton (Mrs. Dean), for Aberdeen, South (Miss Begg), for North-East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel), for Edmonton (Mr. Love) and for Glasgow, North-West (John Robertson). We also heard several sincere contributions from Opposition Members. Perhaps the most striking of those speeches was that made by the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Angela Browning), who spoke with great passion and commitment.
	We also heard from my hon. Friend—uniquely, for the purposes of this debate, given the way in which he strongly supported the proposals in the Bill—the Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson). I can confirm to him that given the suspension of the Assembly, the proposals in the Bill will be part of a Northern Ireland welfare reform Order in Council. The roll-out of pathways will take place in 2008, which reflects our commitment throughout the country.
	We heard 20 speeches with strong tone and content—up until the last one. In a debate about transforming people's lives, the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Ruffley) tried to transform the debate into one of personal insults and invective, which did him, his cause and case, and the contributions made by other Conservative Members no good.
	The purpose of the Bill is to acknowledge the fact that too many long-term sick and disabled people have been written off for too long by the welfare system. The Bill will put that right. It is worth reflecting, as hon. Members did, on the progress that has been made in recent years. Less than five years ago, the Employment Service and the Benefits Agency worked in isolation from each other. In many towns, two separate offices stood on the same high street, which drew a profound physical distinction between those who could work to support themselves and those who were implicitly deemed to be beyond the scope of the labour market. That situation demonstrated the real need for organisational change, policy change and cultural change to our focus on the labour market.
	The Bill will be underpinned by the national roll-out of pathways. In many senses, pathways is the culmination of the Jobcentre Plus approach of uniting help and support for our customers with a clear focus on work for those who can. Hon. Members spoke about their experiences of and aspirations for pathways when the national roll-out reaches their constituency. My hon. Friend the Member for North-East Derbyshire talked with great passion about her assessment of the success of pathways in Derbyshire.
	I have met people throughout the country whose lives have been literally transformed—and occasionally saved—as a consequence of the support that pathways and the advisers involved in it have been able to provide to those who are most in need of support. It is worth reflecting on the testimonies of those who have been supported by pathways. I sense that too many of those people were written off by society and employers in the past. Most importantly and tragically, however, in many cases, those people had given up on themselves and what they could contribute to society.
	I listened with interest to my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, North-West, who talked about the wider impact of the reliance on incapacity benefit. The link between inactive benefits and child poverty has been well made. Reliance on inactive benefits not only in parts of Glasgow, Liverpool, Manchester, London and other great cities, but also in some of our rural communities, villages and towns, has become generational—as if it was an inherited benefit. There is a wider impact on life expectancy, which my hon. Friend has commented on before. The life expectancy in the poorest areas of Glasgow is a full 27 years shorter than in the most prosperous parts of London. Even within London, the levels of disparity between life expectancy are acute.

Lynne Jones: I share my hon. Friend's praise for the pathways to work scheme, but does he share my concerns that his departmental evidence shows that the programmes are less effective in helping people with mental health problems? Will he ensure that when the new arrangements come in, we have programmes that help those most disadvantaged people, who are greatly discriminated against by employers?

Jim Murphy: I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention, but pathways has shown that folk with mental health illnesses, fluctuating mental health conditions and learning disabilities can be supported with the right level of tailored support, focused on their needs and on what they can still contribute to society and employment. That is an important distinction from what went before.
	On the specifics, pathways is the most successful initiative of its type from any Government in this country. Some 25,000 job entries are a consequence of pathways, and it is testing a new and innovative approach, involving the private and voluntary sector, to support the specific needs, conditions, aspirations and abilities of the individual. I disagree with the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr. Hammond) that pathways will stifle innovation, and I do so for a number of important reasons.
	In respect of the way in which we are constructing contracts, our current plans will allow for 70 per cent. to be paid on the basis of outcomes, with 30 per cent. set aside to enable others to enter the market and to provide cover for overheads for smaller organisations in particular. On the way in which we shape the outcomes, it is important that we construct the contracts in such a way that the private and voluntary sector does not simply help those whom it is easiest to support into work. That is an important distinction as we extend pathways through the private and voluntary sector.
	In respect of support for those who have fluctuating mental health conditions and other fluctuating conditions, as my hon. Friends the Members for City of York and for Burton and the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton said, it is important to reflect on the fact that the single biggest contribution to people coming on to incapacity benefit is fluctuating mental health conditions. That is a remarkable change in recent years. I can confirm that the reformed PCA process will take into account the fluctuating nature of many conditions of those on incapacity benefit. It will not be a snapshot of one experience at a point in one day. We will continue to assess individuals over a period of time. Key to that, however, is that we ensure that the staff in Jobcentre Plus and in private and voluntary sector providers have the level of skills, knowledge, empathy and understanding to ascertain the needs and experiences of the customers they support.

Danny Alexander: Before the Minister leaves the subject of pathways to work, will he address the questions raised on the level of funding? As I have said before, and as the hon. Member for Aberdeen, South (Miss Begg) said, "pathways lite" will not be good enough to help people across the country.

Jim Murphy: The Government agree. That is not our intention. We will fully invest in pathways so that it can be rolled out across the country. We will learn from the best experiences and replicate best practice, so that it becomes common practice. There is no question whatsoever of us underinvesting in what is the most successful initiative of its type in the history of active labour-market policies in this country in supporting people on inactive benefits.
	On local housing allowance, about which hon. Members on both sides of the House asked, it is our intention to make payments directly to the tenant rather than to the landlord. It is part of the continuing effort on financial exclusion and personal responsibility. Evidence from the pilot schemes is that up to 25 per cent. of those who received the payments directly opened a bank account for the first time, which is an important advance in respect of financial inclusion. The policy is also part of an agenda to ensure that housing benefit should not simply be passive, whereby we treat the customer as a passive recipient.
	I confirm to my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton that there will be continuing financial advice to customers about whom he so carefully asked and to whom he is so passionately committed. I confirm to other hon. Members that responsibility for setting the local rates will lie with the Rent Service in England and Wales and with rent officers in Scotland.
	A number of hon. Members on both sides of the House asked about the housing benefit sanction. It is our view as a Government and as Labour politicians that the antisocial behaviour that devastates lives, tears communities apart and terrorises neighbours can no longer be tolerated. The measures in the Bill are an important step in the continuing effort to drive up behaviour in some of our communities. It is important that the sanction is linked as part of a package to rehabilitation. The sanction will apply after eviction. It is about preventing someone being able after eviction to claim housing benefit and to perpetuate antisocial behaviour by moving from one community to another and continuing to terrorise law-abiding neighbours. I confirm that we intend to pilot the proposal in 10 English local authorities over two years.
	Hon. Members on both sides of the House asked about the availability of regulations in draft. I confirm again that it is our intention to provide the key regulations in draft for Committee, which is entirely appropriate. In line with normal procedure for such legislation, we are talking about regulations concerning limited capability for work, limited capability for work-related activity, work-focused health-related assessments, work-focused interviews, local housing allowance and the housing benefit sanction.
	One thing that has been missing from the debate has been the usual ritualistic, retrospective justification of the previous Government's approach to this important issue of public policy. Occasionally, Conservative Front Benchers have flirted with an implicit apology for their record, but it is worth reminding the House what happened in the 10 to 15 years prior to our coming to power. Incapacity benefit numbers not only doubled but trebled under the previous Government. In 1995, 1 million people went on to incapacity benefit; in 1996, 1 million people went on to incapacity benefit. During that period, unemployment went over 3 million twice, and there was no pathways or equivalent. It is important to recognise the scale of the challenge that we faced.
	Our approach is that no one should be automatically written off as they were in the past. An industrial injury, a fluctuating physical or mental health condition, should no longer enable somebody to be written off as they were in the past. This Bill is about the traditional Labour demand of the right to work for all. It is also an acknowledgment that the Government can go further in fulfilling our responsibility to provide support for every individual, giving them the chance to get into work and to stay in work, and every opportunity if they leave work to return to the labour market when appropriate. I commend the Bill to the House.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Bill accordingly read a Second time.

WELFARE REFORM BILL (PROGRAMME)

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 83A (6) (Programme motions),
	That the following provisions shall apply to the Welfare Reform Bill:
	 Committal
	1. The Bill shall be committed to a Standing Committee.
	 Proceedings in Standing Committee
	2. Proceedings in the Standing Committee shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion on Thursday 9th November 2006.
	3. The Standing Committee shall have leave to sit twice on the first day on which it meets.
	 Consideration and Third Reading
	4. Proceedings on consideration shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour before the moment of interruption on the day on which those proceedings are commenced.
	5. Proceedings on Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the moment of interruption on that day.
	6. Standing Order No. 83B (Programming committees) shall not apply to proceedings on consideration and Third Reading.
	 Other proceedings
	7. Any other proceedings on the Bill (including any proceedings on consideration of Lords Amendments or on any further messages from the Lords) may be programmed.— [Mr. Watts.]
	 Question agreed to.

WELFARE REFORM BILL (CARRY-OVER)

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 80A (1) (a) (Carry-over of bills),
	That if, at the conclusion of this Session of Parliament, proceedings on the Welfare Reform Bill have not been completed, they shall be resumed in the next Session.— [Mr. Watts.]
	 Question agreed to.

WELFARE REFORM BILL [MONEY]

Queen's recommendation signified—
	 Motion made and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 52 (1)(a)(Money resolutions and ways and means resolutions in connection with bills),
	That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Welfare Reform Bill, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of money provided by Parliament of—
	(1) so much of any sums payable by way of employment and support allowance as is attributable to entitlement to an income-related allowance,
	(2) any administrative expenses of the Secretary of State in carrying into effect provisions of the Act relating to employment and support allowance,
	(3) any expenditure incurred by the Secretary of State in consequence of any other provisions of the Act, and
	(4) any increase attributable to the Act in the sums payable out of money so provided under any other enactment.— [Mr. Watts.]
	 Question agreed to.

WELFARE REFORM BILL [WAYS AND MEANS]

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 52 (1)(a)(Money resolutions and ways and means resolutions in connection with bills),
	That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Welfare Reform Bill, it is expedient to authorise—
	(1) the charging to income tax of a contributory employment and support allowance,
	(2) the payment into the Consolidated Fund of sums estimated by the Secretary of
	State to be equivalent in amount to sums recovered by him in connection with payments made by way of income-related employment and support allowance, and
	(3) any increase attributable to the Act in the sums which under any other Act are
	payable into the Consolidated Fund.— [Mr. Watts.]
	 Question agreed to.

RECESS QUESTIONS

Ordered,
	That, notwithstanding the practice of the House relating to the answering of questions and the making of written ministerial statements, the following provisions shall apply during the summer adjournment this year:
	1. Questions for named day answer by a Minister of the Crown on one of the days specified in paragraph 2 may be tabled on Monday 4th September, Wednesday 6th September and Monday 11th September.
	2. The named days for the answer of questions tabled under paragraph 1 above shall be Monday 11th September, Wednesday 13th September and Monday 18th September.
	3. Only questions correctly marked as being for named day answer on one of the dates in paragraph 2 shall be treated as falling within the terms of this order and any such questions which are received by the Table Office
	(a) between 26th July and 3rd September shall be treated as if tabled on 4th September;
	(b) on 5th September shall be treated as if tabled on 6th September; and
	(c) between 7th and 10th September shall be treated as if tabled on 11th September.
	4. Standing Order No. 22(4) shall apply to Questions tabled under this Order, with the substitution in sub-paragraph (a) of the word 'four' for the word 'two', and including the provision in sub-paragraph (b) limiting to five the number of Questions for answer on a named day which may be tabled by a Member on any one day.
	5. A Minister of the Crown, being a Member of the House, may give notice on one of the days specified in paragraph 1 of his intention to make a ministerial statement in written form on one of the days specified in paragraph 2.
	6. In the event of a recall of the House under Standing Order No. 13, the Speaker may publish a memorandum amending the provisions of this Order, and such amendments shall have effect as if they had been agreed to by the House.— [Mr. Watts.]

DELEGATED LEGISLATION

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 118 (6) (Standing Committees on Delegated Legislation),

Northern Ireland

That the draft Northern Ireland Act 2000 (Modification) (No. 2) Order 2006, which was laid before this House on 24th May, be approved.— [Mr. Watts.]
	 Question agreed to.

COMMITTEES

International Development

Ordered,
	That Mr Jeremy Hunt be discharged from the International Development Committee and James Duddridge be added. —[Rosemary McKenna, on behalf of the Committee of Selection.]

Public Accounts

Ordered,
	That Angela Browning be discharged from the Committee of Public Accounts and Mr Philip Dunne be added .—[Rosemary McKenna, on behalf of the Committee of Selection.]

PETITIONS

Post Office Card Account

Brian Binley: You will know, Mr. Speaker, that the Post Office is talking about reducing the number of post offices to 4,000, and that at the moment there are 14,500. You will know that the Government refuse to tell us what, in their view, the number should be, even though they are the major shareholders. That impacts strongly on the Post Office card account, which everyone thought would continue almost ad nauseam, but which we are now told will continue only until 2010. There are over 4,000 petitioners, and I am delighted to present their petition to the House. It states:
	To the House of Commons the petition of the residents of Northampton South declares that Britain's Post Offices, the heart of many local communities, are under threat. The Petitioners, therefore, request that the House of Commons call upon Her Majesty's Government to reconsider the policy of phasing out the Post Office Card Account which will deprive the sub-post office network of 40 per cent. of their income. The Petitioners remain etc.
	 To lie upon the Table.

Civil Service

John McDonnell: On the day on which civil service staff presented their claim for this year's increases in pay, I should like to present a petition from 50,000 civil servants. It is the largest petition presented to Parliament in the history of the civil service. I present it on behalf of the PCS parliamentary group. It states:
	The petition of staff working in the Civil Service
	Declares that the petitioners have grave concerns about the growing differences in pay, leave entitlement, and other conditions between civil servants employed by different government departments, agencies and other related bodies, and the effect that such differences are having upon morale; and express their wish for national pay bargaining to establish common standards and minimum requirements on pay and conditions.
	The petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Minister for the civil service to work towards national pay bargaining in the civil service.
	 To lie upon the Table.

Fraser Day Hospital

Mark Lancaster: It is a pleasure to present two petitions to the House. The first concerns the possible closure of the Fraser Day hospital in Newport Pagnell, signed by councillor Debbie Brock and 1,067 other people. It states:
	The Petition of the residents of Milton Keynes,
	Declares that the proposed closure of the Fraser Day Hospital in Newport Pagnell will have an adverse impact on intermediate care in Milton Keynes and that it is unacceptable that as the population of Milton Keynes continues to increase, this particular service is being withdrawn.
	The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Government to work with Milton Keynes Primary Care Trust to stop the closure of the Fraser Day Hospital.
	And the Petitioners remain, etc.
	 To lie upon the Table.

Mental Health Services (Milton Keynes)

Mark Lancaster: My second petition is signed by Mrs. Sarah Dewey and 367 other people, and it regards the proposed cuts to adult mental health services in Milton Keynes. It states:
	The Petition of the residents of Milton Keynes,
	Declares that the proposed cuts to Day Services, Drug and Alcohol Services and the Memory Screening Clinic will have an adverse impact on care for citizens with Mental Health Service requirements in Milton Keynes...The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge the Secretary of State for Health to work with the Milton Keynes Primary Care Trust to stop the proposed cuts to Adult Mental Health Services in Milton Keynes.
	And the Petitioners remain, etc.
	 To lie upon the Table.

Innocent Must Stay Campaign

Andrew Gwynne: With your permission, Mr. Speaker, I present a petition to the House of Commons for which 4,199 signatures have been collected by the "Innocent Must Stay" campaign, working in collaboration with local churches, community organisations and the  Tameside Advertiser and  Tameside Reporter in order to prevent the deportation of my constituent, Innocent Nkung, to the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
	The petitioners assert that as a member of the pro-democracy Christian Union for Renewal and Justice, which helped to organise against the DRC Government's attempts to block elections, Innocent was imprisoned, raped and tortured by supporters of the DRC Government. The petitioners also assert that Innocent's family have been further terrorised by the regime since Innocent fled the country in May last year, and that Innocent would be placed in serious danger if he were to return at this time.
	The Petition of the Innocent Must Stay Campaign
	Declares that Innocent-Prosper Nkung Empi deserves to be given asylum within the United Kingdom due to his and his family's recent experiences of torture by the Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
	The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urge Her Majesty's Government to show compassion and to allow him to stay safely within the United Kingdom.
	And the Petitioners remain, etc.
	 To lie upon the Table.

Radioactive Waste Disposal (Foulness)

James Duddridge: I present a petition concerning the disposal of radioactive waste on Foulness island. The petition has led to a constructive dialogue between myself, the Ministry of Defence, the Atomic Weapons Establishment, the Environment Agency and Qinetiq. The petition has over 700 signatures and was completed with the support of the  Southend Echo.
	The petition states:
	The Petitioners request that the House of Commons call upon the Government to do all within its power to prevent this disposal of radioactive waste on Foulness and ensure that this does not occur at any time in the future.
	And the Petitioners remain, etc.
	 To lie upon the Table.

NEW FOREST (MINISTERIAL MANDATE)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn. —[Jonathan Shaw.]

Desmond Swayne: I thank you, Mr. Speaker, for this opportunity to hold an Adjournment debate on an issue of vital importance in the New Forest. I am indebted to Anthony Pasmore, one of the verderers of the New Forest and a monthly correspondent in the New Forest newspaper of record, the  New Milton Advertiser and  Lymington Times.
	The Minister's mandate sets out the rules by which the Forestry Commission must administer the New Forest. It establishes
	"conservation of the natural and cultural heritage as the principal objective of management".
	My purpose in asking the Minister to respond to the debate is to give him the opportunity to reaffirm that principle against the fears that it may be superseded.
	The Forestry Commission raises revenue. That is why it calls itself Forest Enterprise. It might raise revenue through commercial forestry or through commercially exploiting the leisure opportunities afforded by the New Forest. Arguably, the latter has become a more favourable target in the existing climate.
	I should like the Minister to deny categorically the rumours that are circulating that the Minister's mandate will become a dead letter, and that the primacy of conservation will be superseded by the need to provide recreation opportunities. I have two specific concerns, with which I shall illustrate the problem. The first is to do with the campsites in the New Forest. They fill some 357 acres of the forest, not including the areas around the campsites that are inevitably affected and disrupted by their existence.
	This has been a long-running sore—a battle between the Forestry Commission, which obviously wants to increase the services and the pitches available in those campsites in order to generate more revenue, and the verderers of the New Forest who represent the commoners and the rights of grazing. Currently, that battle is joined over the Roundhill and Hollands Wood campsites. But now something of a quite different order has arisen.
	In May this year the Forestry Commission and the Camping and Caravanning Club announced a new joint venture partnership, Forest Holidays. Forest Holidays will lease the campsites of the New Forest, all 357 acres, and the press statement announcing this new venture stated that it
	"opens the door to Forest Holidays developing even more camping and cabin sites on Forestry Commission land".
	It then goes on to say that the objective of the new venture
	"will be to modernise the facilities across the network of Forest Holiday sites."
	What does that all mean? It certainly means more pitches, with electric hook-ups. Does it mean more roads and paths? Does it mean, for example, security lighting, entertainment opportunities, shops, playgrounds, perhaps a swimming pool, perhaps even a swimmers' sub-tropical paradise, as exists at Centre Parcs, or even a "stately pleasure-dome", such as Kubla Khan decreed, in "caverns measureless to man"? Remember that we speak of the New Forest, a world heritage site, our smallest national park, where the camp sites are never far from the most sensitive parts of the forest core.
	All that stands between these potential developments being realised are the verderers of the New Forest, armed, of course, with the Minister's mandate. Will they be supported by the Minister and his mandate, or will they be bullied into submission or even circumvented by a new national park authority, which as a local authority is armed with compulsory purchase powers?
	Of course, I have deliberately exaggerated in order to point to the potential danger that exists for the future. I do that in order that we recognise that danger now so that we can guard against it. The Minister's reaffirmation of the core principle of his mandate tonight will be a powerful guard against that potential future that I have just described.
	I now come to a more pressing and imminent concern, and that is the disposal by the Forestry Commission of Holmsley lodge and Shrike cottage, together with 13 magnificent acres at the heart of the New Forest. I am reassured by a letter from the Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the hon. Member for Brent, North (Barry Gardiner), of 4 July when he assured me that no final decision has been taken on this matter. I hope to persuade the Minister to abandon this proposal entirely, but if I fail to do that, at least to reconsider the time scale in which this is to take place. The current tenants have been told that they need to leave by January 2007. Given the business that they have and the fact that they have nowhere to go and that they have been in those properties for 40 years, I suggest that a much longer time scale would be necessary.
	I find, surprisingly, that I am at odds with the verderers on this particular question. Because the verderers have backed the Forestry Commission's proposal. I honestly believe that in this respect they have made the wrong call. It was a narrow decision made on the casting vote of the official verderer. Perhaps the verderers were influenced in that decision by the campsite issue, and not wanting to open up the possibility of war on two fronts with the Forestry Commision at any one time.
	I also understand the verderers' concern that properties be made available for commoning. I would not say for one moment that the verderers were bribed in the decision that they came to, but as the Under-Secretary put it to me, rather delicately, in his letter of 4 July:
	"Therefore if the sale is approved a proportion of the funds raised would be reinvested in affordable housing for commoners."
	It is, of course, right and proper that the verderers should take that into account. I understand that the offer of one property was increased to two, and the verderers reached their decision accordingly. What the Under-Secretary did not say in that letter—perhaps the Minister will throw some light on this matter, if not tonight, then in correspondence—is the proportion of the funds generated by that sale that will be reinvested in housing for commoners.
	In its letter to me of 15 May, the Forestry Commission stated that the properties concerned do not meet the criteria set out in the Illingworth report. On Holmsley lodge, it stated:
	"the house does not make a practical family home."
	And on Shrike cottage, it stated:
	"The cottage does not make a practical family home."
	I accept that the current tenants of Shrike cottage and Holmsley lodge are not practising commoners, but if we do not sell the family silver, those properties will be available to commoners in the future. Making properties available for commoning at affordable rents is a vital part of the Forestry Commission's role.
	As to the practicality of those properties as family homes, tell that to the Landers, who have raised a family of five in Holmsley lodge, and to the Mays, who have raised a family of four in Shrike cottage. The irony is that those properties were probably not practical family homes. Shrike cottage had no kitchen, a leaking roof, rotten window frames and one open fireplace to heat the entire cottage, but that property has been transformed, as has Holmsley lodge, by the existing tenants. Perhaps that has contributed to such a gem being disposed of on the open market, rather than its being secured for the long-term interests of the New Forest.
	The Landers and the Mays have installed a vermin-proof fence around all 13 acres of magnificent landscape. They have built up a wild fowl business of national and international renown. It currently contains some 1,000 birds, many of which are endangered species, and the families are now part of the forest community. I have a letter from Burley parish council, which I shall furnish to the Minister by tomorrow's mail, that states the importance of the enterprise and of those tenants to the community. I have a petition containing the signatures of 110 local residents, which, given the sparsity of residents in that part of the forest, is something of an achievement.
	At the beginning of the 20th century, the New Forest was much more than the heathland and woodland that it now comprises. It was a great national estate, which included farms, mansions, shops and businesses all under the Crown estate. The Forestry Commission sold off many of those assets, until it was checked, partly by the Illingworth report in the mid-1980s. The question is whether that process has started again. Last year, we saw the proposals for the sale of Swan Green, and this year we have Shrike cottage and Holmsley lodge. I urge the Minister to come and see this outstanding site and to consider that once he sells this gem in the heart of the New Forest—he will sell it, because he will sign the order for the disposal of the properties—he will lose control for ever over what happens there. Before he signs—before he closes an ecologically important business and renders three elderly people homeless because, after 40 years as tenants, they have nowhere else to go—I ask him to consider his mandate and the fundamental principle, which is the conservation of the natural and cultural heritage of the New Forest. Over the best part of the past half century, the Mays and the Landers and their wildfowl have become part of that cultural and natural heritage. The millionaires or footballers' wives to whom these properties will be sold are unlikely to do so.

Ben Bradshaw: I congratulate the hon. Member for New Forest, West (Mr. Swayne) on securing this debate. I apologise for the fact that the Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, North (Barry Gardiner), who is overseas on ministerial business, cannot reply, which is why the hon. Gentleman has me.
	As the hon. Gentleman reminded the House, the importance of the Minister's mandate goes back to 1971, when it became the Forestry Commission's "licence to operate" after a rather turbulent period in the New Forest's history. The last review and renewal of the mandate was in 1999, a few years ahead of the planned renewal date because of the pace of change in the New Forest and the importance of the mandate.
	At the heart of the mandate are a number of objectives for the management of the Crown lands: the conservation of the natural and cultural heritage as the principal objective of management; community engagement through greater public participation in decision making; the promotion of rural development opportunities; the provision of access and recreation opportunities and increasing public awareness and understanding; and, insofar as it is consistent and compatible with the first and second objectives, efficient management of the Forestry Commission's operations and appropriate generation of income from timber production and other uses of the Crown lands. There are also a series of guiding principles concerning natural heritage, cultural heritage, public enjoyment, rural development, and something called working together.
	Overall, the mandate gives clear direction without overly constraining the commission's ability to manage the forest. Even with the creation of the national park, it remains just as relevant today as it was in 1971. The mandate has been included in the special guidance that Ministers sent to the national park authority, emphasising the importance of the mandate to the management of the New Forest.
	There has been a suggestion in the local press—the hon. Gentleman quoted it—that the mandate is being abandoned. Let me reassure him that that is completely unfounded. I am pleased to be able to reassure all concerned that the mandate remains the key guidance to the commission's management of the Crown lands. I am assured by my officials that the character of the campsites will be unaffected by the holidays venture. To change their character would require the agreement of all the relevant statutory bodies, and, as he said, there is considerable disquiet in his constituency about that suggestion.
	The mandate is due for review and renewal in 2008. That will give those with an interest in the forest—I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will be right there at the front—an opportunity to help to ensure that it remains relevant to future needs and coincides with the completion of the management plan for the national park.
	I turn to the commission's plans to sell two properties in the New Forest—Holmsley lodge and Shrike cottage. The changes in society and forestry practice mean that the Forestry Commission no longer has a significant need to provide housing to forest workers. That has resulted in the commission reducing its housing stock in England from over 1,500 in 1980 to fewer than 240 today. However, the New Forest has seen proportionally far fewer sales than elsewhere because of the additional criteria applied to sales in the New Forest. Two criteria underpin the retention of properties in the forest. The first is to provide opportunities for affordable housing, with associated back-up land for practising commoners and the second is to provide affordable local accommodation for commission employees in key posts when there are operational reasons for staff to be based in the forest.
	With the existing lease on Holmsley lodge and Shrike cottage ending in June this year, the Forestry Commission rightly considered their future against the criteria that I outlined. It found few grounds for retaining those properties, and it is consulting interested parties, including, as the hon. Gentleman rightly said, the verderers of the New Forest, who are the experts in assessing the value of a property to commoning.
	Once the commission has considered all the arguments, and if it believes that the sale should still go ahead, it will seek a final decision from the Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Brent, North, on whether the properties should be sold.
	The hon. Member for New Forest, West rightly mentioned the concerns of the properties' tenants, who have been there for a considerable time. They knew that the lease was coming to an end and that a review of properties' future was taking place. The matter should not, therefore, have been entirely unexpected.

Desmond Swayne: Of course, the tenants were expecting to pay more rent but there was no suggestion that the lease would end. That is always a possibility for any tenant, but I ask the Under-Secretary who makes the decision to consider those tenants' specific circumstances, their input and the difference that they have made to that part of the forest.

Ben Bradshaw: I am sure that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary will consider the hon. Gentleman's representations. I know that they have exchanged correspondence on the subject.
	I hope that the hon. Gentleman accepts that the Forestry Commission, as a public body, has a responsibility to the taxpayer to maximise its income and asset base while maximising the help that it gives the commoners in his constituency. Subject to a decision to sell the properties, the Forestry Commission, which is not unsympathetic to the tenants' position, is prepared to allow them to stay on until February 2007 to give them more time to make alternative arrangements.
	The hon. Gentleman suggested that the tenants should be allowed to remain in the properties for the rest of their lives. That would impose an unquantifiable commitment on the commission, as I am sure that none of us would wish the tenants an early departure from this world. Such an open-ended commitment would affect the commission's ability to invest elsewhere in the New Forest.
	As the hon. Gentleman said, it is planned to invest a considerable amount of the capital—I cannot give the exact figure—realised by the sale in providing new affordable housing to support commoning. There will thus be new properties to support commoning in his constituency. I understand that that is the reason for the verderers' support for the sale. Revenue will also revert to the Forestry Commission and there will therefore be more income on both sides.

Desmond Swayne: I hope that, if the Under-Secretary responsible for the matter is not persuaded to abandon the proposal, he will consider the possibility of at least a period that is long enough for the tenants to wind up humanely a business that involves 1,000 wildfowl. From now until January next year is a short time.

Ben Bradshaw: My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary is responsible for biodiversity and I am responsible for animal welfare. I am sure that we will liaise with each other to satisfy ourselves that, in the event of the tenancy ending, animal welfare is taken into account in the way in which the hon. Gentleman requests.
	As the hon. Gentleman said, one of the reasons for the sale is that Holmsley lodge and Shrike cottage do not have rights of common or recent history of commoning associated with them. The view of the Forestry Commission and, indeed, the verderers, is that the properties are not suitable to be used in such a way. New housing built to modern standards, with the provision of some grazing land, would be a better way for the commission to continue to demonstrate its commitment to commoning. That would help maintain the cultural heritage of the hon. Gentleman's constituency as required by the Minister's mandate.
	The commission has already shown a strong commitment to supporting commoning by increasing the number of properties that it lets at reduced rents to commoners. That has increased from 16 in 1992 to 29 today and it represents 44 per cent. of the commission's housing stock in the New Forest. It is expected that the number of commission properties let to commoners will continue to increase.
	In summary, I reiterate to the hon. Gentleman that the status of the Minister's mandate has not been devalued by the creation of the national park, and there are no plans to abandon it, although it is up for renewal in 2008. The proposed sale of Holmsley lodge and Shrike cottage would not be contrary to the direction in the mandate. It would serve to help commoning, rather than undermining it. The reinvestment plan would, in my view, be to the long-term benefit of the New Forest.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Adjourned accordingly at half-past Ten o'clock.